John Gauden

John Gauden (died 20 September 1662) was an English cleric. He was Bishop of Exeter then Bishop of Worcester. He was also a writer, and the reputed author of the important Royalist work Eikon Basilike.

Life

He was born at Mayland, Essex, where his father, also named John Gauden, was vicar of the parish, and educated at Bury St Edmunds school and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1623 and Master of Arts in 1626. By his matriculation at Michaelmas 1619, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives him a birth year 1599/1600; whereas A Cambridge Alumni Database gives 1605. He then moved to Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated Bachelor of Divinity in 1635 and Doctor of Divinity in 1641.

He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Russell of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, Treasurer of the Navy and his second wife Elizabeth Gerard, and widow of Edward Lewkenor of Denham in Suffolk, and was tutor at Oxford to two of his wife's brothers. They had five children, four sons and a daughter. He seems to have remained at Oxford until 1630, when he became vicar of Chippenham. His sympathies were at first with the parliamentary party. He was chaplain to Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, and preached before the House of Commons in 1640.

In 1641 he was appointed to the rural deanery of Bocking. Apparently, his views changed as the revolutionary tendency of the Presbyterian party became more pronounced, for in 1649 he addressed to Lord Fairfax A Religious and Loyal Protestation... against the proceedings of the parliament. Under the Commonwealth he faced both ways, keeping his ecclesiastical preferment, but publishing from time to time pamphlets on behalf of the Church of England. While in Bocking he met William Juniper, the "Gosfield Seer" whom he first dismissed as a harmless fool. However, he was later impressed by prophecies made by Juniper, first that the King would be overthrown, and then that the monarchy would be restored.