Henry Airay

From Wood's Athenae Oxonienses we glean the details of Airay's college attendance:[1] He was sent to St Edmund's Hall in 1579, aged nineteen or thereabouts.

Soon after he was translated to Queen's College, where he became pauper puer serviens; that is, a poor serving child that waits on the fellows in the common hall at meals, and in their chambers, and does other servile work about the college.His transference to Queen's is perhaps explained by its having been Gilpin's college, and by his Westmorland origin giving him a claim on Eaglesfield's foundation.

"[1] His Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1618, reprinted 1864) is a specimen of his preaching before his college, and of his fiery denunciation of Roman Catholicism and his fearless enunciation of that Calvinism which Oxford in common with all England then prized.

[1] Airay was also rector of Otmore (or Otmoor), near Oxford, a living which involved him in a trying but successful litigation, whereof later incumbents reaped the benefit.

His character as a man, preacher, divine, and as an important ruler in the university, will be found portrayed in the Epistle by Christopher Potter, prefixed to the Commentary.