William Overton

, one of the prime preachers in the reign of Q. Elizabeth, was born in London, became Demy or Semicommoner of Magd. coll. 25. Jul. 1539. aged 15, Perpetual-fellow in 1551. being then Bach. of Arts. Afterwards proceeding in that faculty, he took holy orders, left the coll. and absented himself during the reign of Qu. Mary. In 1565 he took the degrees in Divinity, being then well beneficed and dignifi’d, and in 1579. was made Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, where he was much commended for his hospitality to the poor, and the good reparation he kept of his house, which a married Bishop, as he was, seldom did, or doth. He hath published,

Sermon against discord, on Rom. 16. vers. 17. Lond. in oct.

Oratio doctiss. & graviss. habita in domo capitulari Lichfield ad Praebendarios & reliquum clerum in visitatione Ecclesiae suae cathedralis congregatum, an. 1600. Lond. 1600. He died in a good old age in the beginning of April, in sixteen hundred and nine, 1609 and was buried in the Church of Eccleshall in Staffordshire, near to the bodies of his two Wives. In the See of Lichfield succeeded Dr. Rob. Abbot, as I shall tell you elsewhere.