He had previously served as Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (from 1614), as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral from 1601, as Master of Catharine Hall (under protest) from 1598, and as Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University from 1596.

He also served on the Court of High Commission and as a Translator (in the First Westminster Company) of the King James Version of the Bible.

The future bishop studied at Hadleigh Grammar School, where he was a fellow student with Bible translator John Bois.

John Still, then Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and a parish priest from 1571, took an interest in their education.

Overall, with Lancelot Andrewes, Samuel Harsnett, and others, had rejected these articles in support of Peter Baro, the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, when on 12 January 1596 he attacked them from the pulpit.

John Overall was also a friend to the erratic mystic William Alabaster (1568–1640), even throughout his years of imprisonment, and was the tutor to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex at Trinity College.

In Alabaster’s Conversion we read: The only thinge that I desired most was to have some disputation abowt my religion, whereof I was well in hope when I sawe certaine learned men of the university to come and visite me, as namely the cheef divinitie reader, Doctor Overall, that was of Trinity College also, and had byn my tutor in former tymes and loved me well...[4]In 1599, Overall clashed with the authorities when he maintained that the perseverance of a truly justified man was conditional upon repentance.

[1] As one of the chaplains-in-ordinary to the queen, Overall was appointed by Whitgift in 1598 to preach before her on the third Wednesday of Lent, 15 March, in place of Bishop Godfrey Goldsborough of Gloucester.

Shortly afterwards, at Easter, his theological position was further endorsed in Cambridge when he was appointed Master of St Catharine's College, with the support of Whitgift.

[5] John Manningham, a Magdalene graduate who would have heard Professor Overall in Cambridge, later complained that he "discoursed verry scholastically" when he preached a Whitehall sermon at the dead queen's court on 6 April 1603[6] In 1602, Overall was made rector of Algarkirk, Lincoln; he held the living for three years.

On 6 June, Lawrence Barker, vicar of St Botolph Aldersgate, and a former colleague at Trinity spoke at Paul's Cross of the "gravity & learning and life" of the new dean.

At the Hampton Court Conference he spoke (16 January 1604) on the controversy concerning predestination, referring to the disputes in which he had been engaged at Cambridge, and won the approval of King James.

[11] Some time, perhaps on the final or third day of the Hampton Court Conference, a decision was made to make a new English translation of the Bible.

During work on the Authorized Bible, Overall became a friend of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626), and the two were firm allies from then on, forming the Arminian wing of the Anglican church.

A popular verse of the day went like this, according to the great gossip John Aubrey: The Dean of St Paul's did search for his wife And where d'ye think he found her?

She was the subject of this suggestive rhyme, cited as evidence that she was too hot for intellectual John Overall to handle: Face she had of filbert hue And bosom’d like a swan.

[3] On 16 November 1616, Marco Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia, being in a feud with his Roman Catholic superiors, came to England.

The memorial to Bishop Overall, with a coloured bust looking out from a niche above, bears the inscription "Vir undequaque doctissimus, et omni encomio major."

[11] Cosin's later teaching of the Church of England on the Eucharist used the language of John Overall: "Corpus Christi sumitur a nobis sacramentaliter, spiritualiter, et realiter, sed non corporaliter."

"[15] The monument in Norwich Cathedral ("with a little painted portrait and vulture-like dove of peace")was erected by Cosin many years after Overall's death.

The suggestion of these canons proceeded from James I, who wanted moral support for his efforts in favour of the Dutch republic; and therefore asked of the clergy their "judgments how far a Christian and protestant king may concur to assist his neighbours to shake off their obedience to their own sovereign upon the account of oppression" (James's letter to Archbishop Abbot).

While absolutely denying to subjects the right of resistance, this canon nevertheless affirms that "new forms of government" originating in successful rebellion have divine authority.

The original manuscript of the first book passed at the death of Richard Bancroft, into Lambeth Palace Library, where it was noted by Laud.