Thomas Bailey or Bayly was a seventeenth-century English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 religious controversialist, a Royalist

Cavalier

Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...

 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...

 clergyman who converted to Roman Catholicism.

Bailey's father was Lewis Bayly

Lewis Bayly

Lewis Bayly was an Anglican bishop.-Life:He was educated at Oxford, became vicar of Evesham, Worcestershire, and probably in 1604 became rector of St. Matthew's Church, Friday street, London...

, Bishop of Bangor, and a brother was the scholar and clergyman John Bayly (1595/6–1633). Bailey was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College, Cambridge

Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

. He began as a priest within his father's diocese; in 1634 he became Rector of Holgate, Shropshire, and in 1638 the sub-dean of Wells

Wells

Wells is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills. Although the population recorded in the 2001 census is 10,406, it has had city status since 1205...

. He served as a commissioned officer in defence of Raglan Castle

Raglan Castle

Raglan Castle is a late medieval castle located just north of the village of Raglan in the county of Monmouthshire in south east Wales. The modern castle dates from between the 15th and early 17th-centuries, when the successive ruling families of the Herberts and the Somersets created a luxurious,...

 in 1646, and was briefly imprisoned in Newgate gaol for writing against the Commonwealth

Commonwealth of England

The Commonwealth of England was the republic which ruled first England, and then Ireland and Scotland from 1649 to 1660. Between 1653–1659 it was known as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland...

 after Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 was executed in 1649.

In that year he also defended Charles against allegations that he had been a Roman Catholic. In Certamen Religiosum he reported on religious discussions from 1646 between Charles and Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester

Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester

Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester was an English aristocrat, inheriting the title Earl of Worcester from his father Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, in 1628. He was a prominent and financially important royalist....

, at Raglan Castle. Bailey attended the Marquess, as his chaplain. The work proved controversial, and was attacked by Hamon L'Estrange

Hamon L'Estrange

Hamon L'Estrange was an English writer on history, theology and liturgy, of Calvinist views, loyal both to Charles I and the Church of England. Along with Edward Stephens, he contributed to the seventeenth-century revival of interest in ancient liturgies; with John Cosin and Anthony Sparrow he...

, Christopher Cartwright

Christopher Cartwright

Christopher Cartwright was an English clergyman, known as a Hebraist and for his use of targums in Biblical exegesis, following the lead of Henry Ainsworth with John Weemes.-Life:...

, and Peter Heylyn.

However, Bailey then made his way to Europe, and had himself converted to Catholicism by the time of his 1654 End to Controversy. A Life of John Fisher

John Fisher

Saint John Fisher was an English Roman Catholic scholastic, bishop, cardinal and martyr. He shares his feast day with Saint Thomas More on 22 June in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and 6 July on the Church of England calendar of saints...

 was issued under Bailey's name in 1655, though it was in fact a re-publication of a much earlier text which Richard Hall (d. 1604) had translated into Latin.

Works

• The royal charter granted unto kings, by God himself, 1649
• Certamen religiosum, 1649
• An End to Controversy between the Roman Catholique and the Protestant Religions Justified, 1654

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Thompson Cooper
  Thompson Cooper
  Thompson Cooper was an English journalist, man of letters, and compiler of reference works. He became a specialist in biographical information, and is noted as the most prolific contributor to the Victorian era Dictionary of National Biography, for which he wrote 1423 entries.-Life:Thompson Cooper...
  
  , ‘Bayly, Thomas (d. c.1657)’, rev. Stephen Wright, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 20 Dec 2007