Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/169

 of the puritan party. He urged reformation of the rubric on the following points, namely: the abolition of private baptism and baptism by women; private communion; the vestures ‘which Bishop Ridley had condemned as too bad for a fool in a play;’ the reading of the apocrypha; pluralities, and insufficient ministry. Nothing definite resulted from the conference. Strype wrongly says ‘the ministers were convinced.’ Travers remained a nonconformist until his death.

Alvey, the master of the Temple, on his deathbed (10 May 1583) recommended Travers as his successor. The benchers petitioned for him, and Burghley's opinion was sought by the queen (, Whitgift, i. 342). The appointment of the master lay with the crown. Archbishop Whitgift insisted that Travers must be re-ordained according to the rites of the church of England. Travers refused on the ground that it would invalidate all ordinations of foreign churches, and annul every marriage or baptism at which he had officiated (cf. Lansdowne MSS. xlii. 90, 1. 78, reasons why he will not be reordained, one paper apparently in Travers's hand, with marginal comments by Whitgift; printed by Strype in ‘Life of Whitgift,’ App. bk. iii. No. xxx.). Richard Hooker [q. v.] was appointed on 17 March 1585; but on 4 Nov. 1586 the benchers made an order that ‘Mr. Travers's pension should be continued, and he remain in the parsonage-house’ (‘Register of the Temple,’ in manuscript Chron. Acc. of Nonconformity). Thus Travers remained afternoon lecturer, and in the afternoon confuted ‘in the language of Geneva’ what Hooker had said in the morning, and what he again vindicated on the following Sunday. ‘Some say the congregation ebbed in the morning and flowed in the afternoon’ (, bk. ix. p. 216). The church was crowded by lawyers, who were deeply interested in the controversy between the preachers. One half of Travers's auditors sided with him, and consequently it was said ‘one half of the lawyers in England’ became ‘counsel against the ecclesiastical government thereof’ (ib. p. 218). To bring the debate to a conclusion, a prohibition was served upon Travers as he was ascending the pulpit stairs on a Sunday afternoon in 1586, and he quietly dismissed the congregation. It is noticeable that the disputants, who were connected by marriage—Travers's brother John having married, 25 July 1580, Hooker's sister Alice—throughout esteemed each other ‘not as private enemies, but as public champions of their separate parties.’ Hooker alludes in generous terms to Travers, and attributes to his criticism the reflection and study which resulted in the ‘Ecclesiastical Polity.’ Travers's ‘Supplication’ to the council was privately printed and circulated. It and Hooker's ‘Answer’ were both printed at Oxford in 1612, and are in all editions of Hooker's works.

After his inhibition Travers remained in London, holding meetings, when he dared, at his own house (, Church Hist. bk. ix. p. 207). It was apparently in 1591 that Travers was invited by Andrew Melville [q. v.], the prefect, to occupy a chair of divinity at St. Andrews University (ib. p. 215).

Soon afterwards Burghley procured him the appointment as provost of the newly founded Trinity College, Dublin, where he succeeded an old Cambridge friend, Adam Loftus [q. v.], the first holder of the office. He was sworn in on 5 Dec. 1595, receiving a salary of 40l. a year. He appealed to the queen through Michael Hicks, secretary to Lord Burghley, to supplement the poor endowment with a grant of 100l. a year in concealed lands (Lansdowne MSS. cviii. 59, cxv. 46).

Travers resigned on 10 Oct. 1598 because ‘he doth find he cannot have his health there’ (, Hist. of Univ. of Dublin, App. pp. 20 n., 372), and returned to England. Archbishop Ussher, whose name is erroneously said to have been entered as his first pupil at Dublin, frequently visited him in London, where he lived in great obscurity and, it is said, poverty. On 5 March 1624 he was glad to receive 5l. from a legacy for silenced ministers (, Manuscripts); but on his death in January 1634, unmarried, he appears to have been wealthy. By his will (P. C. C. 7 Sadler), dated 14 (proved 24) Jan. 1634, he bequeathed, besides legacies to his nephews and nieces, 100l. each to Emmanuel and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, and to Trinity College, Dublin, to educate students for the ministry; his gold plate, harps, globes, compasses, and 50l. for a Latin sermon passed to Sion College, London.

Both the ‘Ecclesiasticæ Disciplinæ’ and the English translation (which was probably printed at Middelburg) are rare, especially with the folding table. The reprint, ‘A Fvl and Plaine Declaration of Ecclesiastical Discipline ovt of the Word of God, and of the declining of the Church of England from the same. At Geneva .,’ 8vo, is also rare. It was again reprinted [London], 1617, 4to. This book has been confounded by every writer since Strype and Neal with ‘De Disciplina Ecclesiæ sacra, ex Dei verbo descripta,’ a different work