Anthony Gilby was an English clergyman, known as a radical Puritan

Puritan

The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 and Geneva Bible

Geneva Bible

The Geneva Bible is one of the most historically significant translations of the Bible into the English language, preceding the King James translation by 51 years. It was the primary Bible of the 16th century Protestant movement and was the Bible used by William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, John...

 translator.

He was born in Lincolnshire, and was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College, Cambridge

Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...

, graduating in 1535.

Early life

He became a minister in Leicestershire

Leicestershire

Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...

 and Calvinist. His Answer to the Devilish Detection of Stephen Gardiner was published in 1647 (as by AG), by John Day

John Day (printer)

John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms...

.

Marian exile

He was then a Marian exile, in Basel, in Frankfurt where he associated with John Foxe

John Foxe

John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...

 and lodged him in 1554, and settled in Geneva from 1555. There he deputed for John Knox

John Knox

John Knox was a Scottish clergyman and a leader of the Protestant Reformation who brought reformation to the church in Scotland. He was educated at the University of St Andrews or possibly the University of Glasgow and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1536...

, with Christopher Goodman

Christopher Goodman

Christopher Goodman BD was an English reforming clergyman and writer. He was a Marian exile, who left England to escape persecution during the counter-reformation in the reign of Queen Mary I of England. He was the author of a work on limits to obedience to rulers, and a contributor to the Geneva...

. He also wrote An Admonition to England and Scotland (1558), contesting the royal supremacy in the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 as imposed by Henry VIII. His work on the Geneva Bible, which was published in 1560, was as one of the main assistants to William Whittingham

William Whittingham

William Whittingham was an English Biblical scholar and religious reformer. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, he became a zealous Protestant; as such he found it prudent to flee to France when Mary I ascended the throne of England....

.

Under Elizabeth

On his return to England when Elizabeth I took the throne, he became involved in the vestments controversy

Vestments controversy

The vestments controversy arose in the English Reformation, ostensibly concerning vestments, but more fundamentally concerned with English Protestant identity, doctrine, and various church practices...

, and remained a dissident and polemicist. Though not very close to the Presbyterians of the Church of England, he supported John Field and Thomas Wilcox

Thomas Wilcox

Thomas Wilcox was a British Puritan clergyman and controversialist.-Life:In 1571, with John Field he authored the Admonition to the Parliament, that called for the removal of Bishops and ecclesiastical hierarchy. Wilcox and Field were imprisoned for one year for this...

 in their First Admonition to Parliament (1572), which was Presbyterian advocacy.

He found a powerful protector in Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon

Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon

Sir Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, KG KB was the eldest son of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon and Catherine Pole.-Ancestry:...

, and was able to live out his life as a lecturer at Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Ashby-de-la-Zouch, — Zouch being pronounced "Zoosh" — often shortened to Ashby, is a small market town and civil parish in North West Leicestershire, England, within the National Forest. It is twinned with Pithiviers in north-central France....

. By assiduous networking, and the influence he had over education at the Ashby grammar school, Gilby became a Puritan leader. Huntingdon assured the continuation of the local evangelical tradition, after Gilby's death, by appointing Arthur Hildersham

Arthur Hildersham

Arthur Hildersham was an English clergyman, a Puritan and nonconforming preacher.-Life:Arthur Hildersham was born at Stetchworth, and brought up as a Roman Catholic. He was educated in Saffron Walden and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Through the patronage of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of...

as rector at Ashby in 1587.

Works

• Commentaries of the divine, John Calvin, upon the Prophet Daniel (1570)
• The psalms of David truly opened and explained by Theodore Beza (1580)