William Paul

a person of good parts and well vers’d in Ecclesiastical and Civil Laws, was born in Eastcheap within the City of London, became a student in this University an. 1614, aged 15 years or thereabouts, and soon after one of the Clerks of Allsouls Coll. About Allsaints time in 1618 he was elected Fellow of the said house, and after he had proceeded in Arts he took holy Orders, and preached frequently in these parts. In 1632, he being then Rector of Brightwell alias Baldwin Brightwell near Watlington in Oxfordshire, he proceeded in Divinity, answered the Divinity Act with general satisfaction, was about that time made one of the Chaplains to his Majesty K. Ch. 1. and afterwards Residentiary of Chichester. A little before the rebellion broke out, he preached a Sermon at the Episcopal Visitation of Dr. Bancroft B. of Oxon on Acts 17.22. Then Paul stood up in the midst of Mars hill, and said, ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. In the time of the rebellion he did suffer in some part for his loyalty, and therefore upon his Majesties restauration an. 1660 he was made one of his Chaplains, and Dean of Lichfield in the place of Dr. Griff. Higgs who died the year before. Afterwards being esteemed wealthy, and knowing in secular affairs, he was by the endeavours of Dr. Sheldon Archb. of Cant. (somtimes his fellow Collegiat) promoted to the See of Oxford, upon the translation of Skinner to Worcester, in hopes that he would rebuild the Bishops Pallace at Cudesden: And having in part promised so to do, he had liberty allow’d him to keep the rectory of Brightwell before mention’d, and the rich rectory of Chinnor in Oxfordshire (which he some years before had obtained) in Commendam with his Bishoprick. Soon after being consecrated, but the day when I know not, and installed or enthronized on the 7 of January 1663, he bought, and laid in at Cudesden a considerable quantity of timber, but before any thing else could be done in the matter, he died; which hapning at Chinnor on the 24 of May in sixteen hundred sixty and five,1665. his body was conveyed to Brightwell before mention’d and buried in the Chancel of the Church there. Soon after was a comly monument set up against the wall, over his grave, at the charge of his disconsolate Widow, the beginning of which is this. Posteris & aeternitati sacrum. Hic subtus conduntur sacrae (heu quantillae) viri magni reliquiae Gulielmi Paul, infans ad magna natus Londini, an. 1599. Clarus olim ex virtute suâ quam ex urbe nomen habiturus, &c. In the See of Oxon succeeded Walt. Blandford D. D. as I shall tell you elsewhere.