John Burges

Burges likened the ceremonies to Vedius Pollio's glasses, "which were not worth a man's life or livelihood," and for this and other expressions he was sent to the Tower of London.

[3] He was not kept long in prison; on sending a written copy of his sermon with a letter of submission to the king and another to the lords of the privy council, he was released.

He drew up his Apology, which was addressed to Bishop Chadderton, and sent to him in manuscript; another copy was presented to the king by a friend, Sir Thomas Jermyn of Rushbrooke, Suffolk.

Burges seems to have returned to England in 1612 or 1613; in June of the latter year James I wrote a letter to the university of Cambridge complaining that he had been allowed to take the degree of doctor of physic without subscription to the three articles of the 36th canon.

He moved to Isleworth, and rapidly acquired a large and lucrative practice, his patients including Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford.

Theodore Mayerne, court physician, defended him, and in June 1616 Francis Bacon wrote to George Villiers suggesting that he should intercede for Burges with the king, saying that the doctor was then prepared to subscribe, and desired to resume his ministry.

[3] Burges was elected to a preachership at Bishopsgate, and six months afterwards he was offered and he accepted the living of Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire, which had been resigned by Edward Chetwynd on his promotion to the deanery of Bristol in July 1617.

[3] When Sir Horatio Vere went out to engage in the war of the Palatinate in 1620, Burges accompanied him as his chaplain; he does not seem to have remained long with the English force, and he was succeeded by his future son-in-law, William Ames.

At Sutton Coldfield he continued to reside till the end of his life, being, as Anthony à Wood writes, "held in much respect among the godly.