Everything about John Overall Bishop totally explained
John Overall (
1559—
1619), the
38th bishop of the
see of Norwich from 1618 until his death one year later. He had previously served as
Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (from 1614), as Dean of
St Pauls 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.
Overall was born in
Hadleigh, Essex and studied at
St John's College and
Trinity College, Cambridge. He is buried within
Norwich Cathedral.
Early years
John Overall was born in 1559, in
Hadleigh,
Essex. In Overall's time,
Hadleigh was a center for
radical Protestantism. He was baptized there on
2 March 1561, the younger son of George Overall, who died that July. 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. Owing to his patronage and direction both applied to
St John's College, Cambridge, when in 1575, Still became Master of the college. When Still moved to become Master of
Trinity, Overall followed him and on
18 April 1578 was admitted as a scholar.
He graduated
BA in 1579 and became a minor
fellow on
2 October 1581. He proceeded
MA (Cantab) the following year and on
30 March became a major fellow. Overall received other college preferments while Still was master and at the start of the academic year in 1586 he was made
praelector Graecus, by October 1588 he was praelector mathematicus. He became seneschal on
17 December 1589 and junior
dean on
14 October 1591. That year he was also ordained a priest at
Lincoln. and in December 1595 Overall was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. His election may have been a snub for Archbishop
John Whitgift, who had adopted the
Calvinistic
Lambeth Articles. Overall, with
Lancelot Andrews,
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. This opposition cost Baro his chair, as he failed to be re-elected in 1596. 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. Perhaps Overall brought these two acquaintances together. Essex became Alabaster’s patron. In
Alabaster’s Conversion we read:
6 April
1603
In 1602, Overall was made rector of
Algarkirk, Lincoln; he held the living for three years. With the support of Sir
Fulke Greville he was nominated
Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in
London. 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. The Deanery itself became a haven for scholars like Scultetus who shared the house with him. Overall himself, according to the radical preacher Thomas Scott, emerged as something of an
Anglo-Catholic.
Soul hunting, Overall, as Dean of St. Paul’s, was present on
3 May 1606 in
St Paul's Churchyard in London, for the hanging of Father
Henry Garnet,
Provincial of the
Jesuits, from whom he tried unsuccessfully to extract a gallows recantation of
Roman Catholicism. Garnet was charged with having a hand in the
Gunpowder Plot. During the
Convocation of 1610, John Overall's famous
Convocation Book was sanctioned, although it wasn't published until much later. This treatise was “on the subject of Government, the divine institution of which was very positively asserted.” In addition, the nature of the sacraments was described by Overall. The composition of the latter part of the Catechism, containing an explanation of the Sacraments, is generally attributed to John Overall. It was added in 1604 by royal authority, “by way of explanation,” in compliance with a wish which the Puritans had expressed at the Conference at Hampton Court.
Authorized Version of the Bible
Sometime, 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. Both the Crown and the puritans found fault with the
bibles then in use. The work was carried on by 54 middle-aged, learned men. John Overall served as a translator (in the First Westminster Company) of the
Authorized King James Version of the Bible. His name appears in the 1611 and 1613 printings, and he's associated with the translation of the chapters from
Genesis to
2 Kings. During work on the Authorized Bible, Overall became a friend of Bishop
Lancelot Andrews (1555-1626), and the two were firm allies from then on, forming the
Arminian wing of the Anglican church. Both Overall and Andrews are considered early fathers of the
Anglican Church, along with
Thomas Cranmer,
Matthew Parker,
Richard Hooker,
John Cosin, and
William Laud. They discriminated and vindicated the Anglican position as opposed to both
Papalism and
Puritanism.
During the translating of the Bible, John Overall's beautiful young wife, Anne Overall (nee Orwell), ran off with a Yorkshire courtier, Sir John Selby. Although John had her brought back to London, the scandal was well known. 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?
Even upon Sir John Selby's bed,
As flat as any flounder.
Anne Overall seems not to be mentioned after this incident. She was the subject of this suggestive rhyme, cited as evidence that she was too hot for intellectual John Overall to handle:
Face she'd of filbert hue
And bosom’d like a swan.
Back she'd of bended ewe
And waisted by a span.
Hair she'd as black as crow
From her head unto her toe,
Down, down all over her,
Hey nonny, nonny no.
Two years later, Overall was translated to the See of Norwich as bishop. In the diary of senior Herald of the College of Arms, William Camden (1551-1623), the relevant entry stated:
Legacy
Overall is buried in the south choir aisle of Norwich Cathedral, and there's a monument to him in the interior of the cathedral in the second recess on the north side of the altar. 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.” The monument was placed there by his friend and former secretary, John Cosin, after his own elevation as bishop to the See of Durham.
Norwich Cathedral housed 17th Century panels to Overall's memory (“with a little painted portrait and vulture-like dove of peace”). This may be the source for the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery that were done by Wenceslaus Hollar in 1657 from an unknown original. Several English cathedral libraries contain copies of various editions of Bishop John Overall's Convocation Book (1606 and 1610) and unpublished works by him are also housed in these collections, such as the undated Latin manuscript in the Cambridge library De statu questionum quinq' inter Remonstrantes et Contra-Remonstrantes Controversarum.
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