Bishop George Hickes

Bishop George Hickes

George Hickes (1642–1715) was an English divine, priest, and scholar who became a leading figure among the Nonjurors after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. A noted antiquary and linguist, he produced influential works on Old English and Anglo-Saxon literature while serving in the Church of England and later as a bishop in the Nonjuring succession. His life intersected with major figures and institutions of Stuart and early Hanoverian Britain, from Charles II and James II to the circles around William Sancroft and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (contemporary institutions).

Early life and education

Hickes was baptised in 1642 at Market Weighton, Yorkshire, into a family connected to the local gentry and the Anglican parish network. He matriculated at University of Oxford and attended Christ Church, Oxford where he studied under tutors influenced by the Laudian movement and the post-Restoration ecclesiastical establishment. His contemporaries included scholars associated with Lincoln's Inn and the legal and clerical milieus of York Minster and Westminster Abbey. Hickes developed interests in Anglo-Saxon glossography and philology, engaging with manuscripts circulating through the collections of Bodleian Library and private antiquarian networks linked to Sir Robert Cotton and Humfrey Wanley.

Ecclesiastical career

Ordained in the Church of England during the Restoration, Hickes held a succession of parish and cathedral appointments, moving within the patronage structures of Charles II and James II. He served as chaplain to notable bishops and at court, interacting with the household clergy of St James's Palace and ecclesiastical administrators from Lambeth Palace. In 1691 he accepted preferment that aligned him with the high-church faction led by William Sancroft, and he became an influential prebendary and lecturer with ties to St Paul's Cathedral and the deaneries around Canterbury Cathedral. After the Glorious Revolution forced oaths of allegiance upon clergy, Hickes refused to swear to William III and Mary II, leading to his ejection from established preferment and his emergence as a leading Nonjuror alongside fellow clergy from Durham Cathedral and Ely Cathedral networks.

Theological views and writings

Hickes wrote extensively on patristic, liturgical, and ecclesiological matters, producing treatises that drew on the works of Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom, and Thomas Aquinas as read through Anglican scholarship. He defended the doctrine of clerical apostolicity linked to the episcopal traditions of St Augustine of Canterbury and the English sacramental theology heritage reflected in the rites of Sarum Rite manuscripts. His philological works include editions and glosses of Old English texts, contributions to the study of Anglo-Saxon law and ritual, and collations of manuscripts associated with collections like the Cotton Library and the holdings of St John's College, Cambridge. Hickes's scholarship influenced collectors and cataloguers such as Humfrey Wanley and bibliographers connected to the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Role in the Nonjuring schism

As a central figure among the Nonjurors, Hickes participated in the formation of parallel episcopal structures that sought to maintain what they regarded as the legitimate succession from the Stuart house. He collaborated with leading Nonjurors including William Sancroft, Thomas Ken, and Henry Dodwell to produce liturgical and doctrinal responses to the post-1688 settlement. Hickes was consecrated a Nonjuring bishop in a clandestine ceremony that tied him into a network of episcopal consecrations involving figures from York and London circles; these consecrations aimed to preserve sacramental validity according to Nonjuring theory. He authored defenses of the Nonjurors' position that engaged with contemporaries such as Gilbert Burnet and debated pamphleteers allied to the Whig political interest and the Court of James II émigré clergy.

Later life and legacy

In later years Hickes continued to minister within the Nonjuring community in London, maintaining connections with recusant and Jacobite sympathizers, clergy attached to All Hallows-by-the-Tower and suburban chapels, and scholarly networks centered on Hampstead and Chelsea. His death in 1715 came shortly after the Jacobite rising of 1715, an event that intensified interest in Nonjuring loyalties among contemporaries. Posthumously, Hickes's manuscripts and printed works became resources for later scholars of Old English and ecclesiastical history, informing the research of figures in the 18th-century antiquarian movement and shaping later collections in institutions such as the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. His role as a bridge between high-church Anglicanism and antiquarian scholarship left traces in the bibliographies of Humfrey Wanley, the editorial projects of Francis Junius, and the liturgical critiques engaged by Edward Gibbon and later historians of the Church of England.

Category:Nonjurors Category:17th-century English clergy Category:18th-century English scholars