John Towers (bishop)

John Towers (died 1649) was an English churchman, Bishop of Peterborough from 1639, a royalist and a supporter of the ecclesiastical policies of William Laud.

[3] Previously he was appointed chaplain to William Compton, 1st Earl of Northampton, and by him was presented to the rectory of Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, on 11 April 1617.

On 11 October 1623 he was instituted rector of Yardley-Hastings in the same county, and on 4 July 1628, being at the time of the king's chaplains, he was presented to the vicarage of Halifax in Yorkshire.

On 4 August 1641 he was included in the list of thirteen bishops formally impeached by the House of Commons on account of their co-operation with Laud in enactment of illegal canons in convocation, in consequence of which they were prevented from voting while their cause was pending.

On 28 December in company with John Williams, archbishop of York, and ten other bishops, of whom nine were among those impeached, Towers signed the well-known protest declaring the actions of parliament in their absence null and void.