Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/296

 pany.' After dinner he took his walks abroad in his parish, or attended to the husbandry of his garden or his glebe, which consisted of sixty-one acres, more or less, scattered intermixedly among the common fields. Towards evening he returned to his studies till supper-time. Willet persuaded Dr. Perne to leave by will an annual sum to the poor scholars of the free school founded in the village of Barley by Archbishop Warham when rector; and it is to his influence with his friend Thomas Sutton [q. v.] that we owe that 'masterpiece of protestant English charity,' Charterhouse.

It was during his residence at Barley that Willet got into trouble about the Spanish match, to which he was strongly opposed. Under care of Sir John Higham of Bury St. Edmunds he sent letters and arguments to the justices of Norfolk and Suffolk, bespeaking liberal support for the king from parliament, at the same time urging them to protest against the marriage (State Papers, Dom. James I, xciv. 79). Willet himself presented a copy of his arguments to the king, and, thereby incurring his high displeasure, was committed to prison under the custody of Dr. White (ib. Dom. 14 Feb. 1618). He appears to have been released after a month's imprisonment.

Willet was always a welcome guest at the houses of his friends and neighbours, among whom he reckoned Sir George Gill, Sir Arthur Cappel (afterwards Lord Capel), Sir Roland Lytton, Sir Robert Chester (of Royston). His own comment on his failure to obtain high office in the church is said to have been 'that some enjoy promotions, while others merit them.' Towards the close of his life he was admitted (19 Jan. 1613) to the rectory of Reed, a parish adjoining that of Barley; but he only held it something over two years, resigning in favour of his eldest son, Andrew, who was admitted on 10 Nov. 1615. The year before his death he was presented to the rectory of the small parish of Chishill Parva, across the border in Essex (now civilly joined to Cambridge).

Willet's death was the result of an accident. On his return home from London his horse threw him near Hoddesdon. His leg was broken and was set so badly that mortification ensued, and ten days later he died at the inn to which he had been taken (4 Dec. 1621), in his fifty-ninth year. On 8 Dec. he was buried in the chancel of Barley parish church. A fine effigy and brass were placed by his parishioners and friends over the place of burial. The effigy (which is still in good preservation) shows a priest, full-length, dressed in his doctor's robes, with square cap, ruff, and scarf, and wearing a beard. There is a portrait of Willet in the fifth folio edition of his 'Synopsis Papismi,' published in 1630. This is probably the better likeness, bearing witness to his son-in-law's description of him, that 'he was of a fair, fresh, ruddy complexion, temperate in his diet, fasting often.'

Of his eighteen children, nine sons and four daughters survived him. His widow was buried in 1637 by his side. His son, Henry Willet (d. 1670), who lost a fortune of 500l. by his loyalty to the king, was apparently ancestor of Ralph Willett or Willet [q. v.] A special license was granted to another son, Paul, in 1630, for a reprint of the ' Synopsis Papismi.' The fourth son, Thomas, is separately noticed. It has been customary to class Willet as a puritan (see Lives and  Puritans), and to place him 'among nonconformists, if not in the ranks of the separatists.' An examination of his most important work, 'Synopsis Papismi,' as well as contemporary evidence, proves that Toplady was only stating a fact when he claimed that Willet 'was zealously attached to the church of England, not a grain of puritanism mingling itself with his conformity' (Historic Proof of Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England). He appeared as a witness against Edward Dering before the Star-chamber, when Dering was accused of having spoken publicly against the institution of godparents. He wore his ecclesiastical robes, his scarf, square cap, and conformed to the use of the surplice in the administration of divine service; said the daily office, and granted license to the sick to eat flesh during Lent. In doctrine he was Calvinistic in tendency and a strenuous opponent of the papal claims. But he was strongly opposed to all 'separatists,' whether on the Roman or free-church side. There is no question that by his writings and example he checked the spread of the puritan revolt and confirmed many doubters in their adhesion to the church of England.

Willet published his magnum opus (the 'Synopsis Papismi') in 1594, adding the 'Tetrastylon' two years later. This armoury of weapons against the papal theory at once took a foremost place in the controversial literature of the time, and rapidly passed through eight editions. It was designed as a reply to the scholarly and elaborate treatise of the Jesuit Bellarmine. He seeks to confute the latter by an appeal to 'scriptures, fathers, councils, imperial constitutions, pontifical decrees, their own writers and our martyrs, and the consent of all Christian