Samuel Fisher (died 1681)

After serving as a rural rector in Shropshire during the period of Charles I's absolute monarchy, he worked in London and Shrewsbury during the English Civil War and under the Commonwealth and in Cheshire during the Protectorate.

The important Victorian archivist and genealogist Joseph Foster incorporated the same birth and academic details in his Alumni Oxonienses,[3] while also featuring other men called Samuel Fisher of the same period.

Download coordinates as: The Clergy of the Church of England database (CCEd) has a record of Samuel Fisher's ordination as priest at Eccleshall by Thomas Morton, then Bishop of Lichfield, on 18 December 1630.

[8] Fisher's ordination by Thomas Morton seems to connect him from the outset of his career with the West Midlands and his preaching at Shrewsbury in 1633 shows that he was moderately known as a preacher in the region before his presentation to the rectory.

He attacked the enforced conformity to Laudian norms, which he considered a threat to the "free passage of out blessed Gospel" and potentially a path to a restoration of popery.

In the Middle Ages Upton Magna had been dominated by Haughmond Abbey, a great Augustinian house which stood within it and held considerable property in the parish.

[14] However, in the 12th century Bishop Roger de Clinton had confirmed that it was Shrewsbury Abbey that then held the tithes and advowson of both the church at Upton and its chapels, specifying Withington as one of them.

[23] Bishop Wright's 1639 visitation found Thomas Blake serving as curate of Tamworth, Staffordshire,[24] a post he had held since at least 1629, a year before Fisher's ordination.

"[1] At the time of Fisher's appointment Studley had become mired in a controversy over his book, The Looking-glasse of Schisme in which he sought to explain a sensational murder at Clun as the result of the Puritan principles of the killer.

With civil war looming in the summer of 1642, Fisher[1] and Barker[20] worked through local landed gentry networks to mobilise support for the Puritan and Parliamentarian causes.

[20] However, a local royalist gentry circle around Francis Ottley pre-empted their efforts, seizing control of Shrewsbury and inviting Charles I to bring his army from Nottingham to occupy the town.

[30] Charlton and Barker tried to send a large sum of money down the River Severn to the Parliamentarians at Bristol but it was intercepted by the Sheriff, John Welde, at Bridgnorth.

"[33] The House of Lords confirmed this on 3 March,[34] giving considerably more detail of the case, which increases the probability that this was the Samuel Fisher who had been driven out of Shropshire.

A committee of sequestrators was empowered to seize the property and income of the church and to pay "Samuell Fisher, Master of Arts, a Godly, Learned, and Orthodox Divine, who is hereby appointed and required to preach every Lords-day, and to officiate as Parson, and to take Care for the Discharge of the Cure of the said Place in all the Duties thereof..." The new incumbent resigned in 1646, which fits well with the re-appearance of Samuel Fisher in Shropshire in August of that year.

A Presbyterian reorganisation of the English Church was now a leading priority, in line with Parliament's promises to its Scottish Covenanter allies in the Civil War.

As Puritans of the period used the term "saint" either generally to refer to all Christians, or, in a more restricted sense, to Apostles or New Testament figures, the town centre churches were shorn of the honorific title.

In 1648 Mackworth was forced to play an active part in the Second English Civil War, precipitated by the king's conspiracy with the Scottish Engagers to regain his throne.

After Pride's Purge, the army coup that removed the moderate Presbyterians from the House of Commons, Mackworth backed the regicide and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Commonwealth of England.

[39] This was based on Whitchurch and Wem, although often known as the Bradford North Classis, after the hundred in which it fell, and was dominated by the stalwart Presbyterian Sir John Corbet,[47] one of the purged MPs.

At Shrewsbury open division came with Parliament's imposition in March 1650 of the Oath of Engagement: "I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords.

[49] Early notice of the English Council of State's determination to impose the Engagement at Shrewsbury came from the handling of Fisher's old friend and relative Sir Robert Harley, who had refused to subscribe.

[51] On 16 August the Council of State ordered Mackworth "to turn out of his garrison all such persons as, either in the pulpit or elsewhere, by seditious words endeavour to stir up sedition and uproar among the people.

"[60] Fisher preached at Bride's, London, (with the "Saint" omitted) apparently for two separate short periods, between his flight from Shrewsbury and his admission to the rectory of Thornton.

The incumbent, James Palmer, a moderate Puritan, was pressured into accepting voluntary sequestration on 18 October 1645 and the Vestry thereafter appointed a series of preachers closer to their own tastes.

He published these, with an introduction penned on 25 September 1654 at Thornton, under the title: A Love-Token for Mourners: Teaching Spiritual Dumbness and Submission under Gods Smarting Rod.

Although Fisher's patron played an initially farcical role in the events that brought about the Restoration of the monarchy, he was the first chosen of the MPs deputed to carry the Convention Parliament's response to the Declaration of Breda to Charles II.

There he became a leading member of a regional network of nonconformists, who tried to take advantage of the Royal Declaration of Indulgence of 15 March 1672 to gain legal recognition for their meetings.

And professing our Loyalty to your Sacred Matie wth all Sincerity, and resolving, by the grace of God, to use the Liberty, soe freely given to us, with that Moderatiõ & peaceableness, that your Majesty may not have Cause to repent the favour afforded to us therein.

[78] These were all channelled through Robert Blayney, clerk of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, allegedly a former confidant of Oliver Cromwell,[79] who handled a large volume of correspondence with government officials for the nonconformists outside London.

Samuel junior's letter relating to Darlaston finished with the postscript "I pray remember my fathers business," suggesting there had been some delay in dealing with it.