[3] Antiquarian Anthony Wood refers to George Warburton as "a Cheshire man born of an ancient Family," indicating his gentility.
in 1603, Warbuton did not take up a position in the Church of England for nearly a decade, when he was ordained as a Deacon in 1613 by Bishop John Bridges.
[7] Bridges ordained Warburton as a priest the following July, when George took up his first living in the rectory at Longworth in the Diocese of Salisbury.
and his appointment at Longworth, Warburton had started making connections with lower level gentry in Berkshire and London.
Warburton told a visiting Lieutenant Hammond in 1634 that the parsonage was worth £300 per year, which was much higher than his previous living at Longworth.
[14] Warburton writes in his letter to the reader that he is publishing the sermon to show his thankfulness for the "happie peace" that England enjoyed.
Five years earlier, a rebellion broke out in Bohemia, where the estates tried to replace the king-elect Ferdinand II with Frederick V of the Palatinate.
Ferdinand used imperial troops to suppress the rebellion, and defeated the Palatinate and Bohemian army in 1620 at the Battle of White Mountain.
[15] King James was trying to solidify a peace with the Spanish Monarchy through a marriage between his son, Prince Charles and the Infanta Maria Anna.
The increasing hostilities on the continent, combined with latent anti-Spanish sentiment in England made peaceful relations with Spain difficult for James.
Warburton was one of several priests who used their sermons to push for the neutral and peaceful position, including men such as John Donne and Richard Gardiner.
He blames the violence and war on two opposing extremes: the Jesuits on one end, and the Puritans (though refers to them as those "inflamed with a precipitate zeale") as the other.
In 1625, he asked Edward Conway, then Secretary of State to have King James write him a letter of recommendation to the Bishop of Winchester.
Warburton only held the position for about two months, as another deanship opened in late July at Wells Cathedral by the death of their dean, Ralph Barlow.
Warburton had been a chaplain to Charles I since his coronation, and the Deanship of Wells had greater wealth and political influence than the cathedral at Gloucester.
By mid-1632, Charles had his Secretary of State, Sir John Coke, write the Dean and Chapter at Wells to procure "decent ornaments as are requisite' for their communion table.
[23] After his promotion to the Archbishopric, William Laud set up visitations at three of the Cathedrals within his archdiocese: Wells, Exeter, and Bristol.