Compton Henry

Compton Henry, bishop of London, son of the second Earl of Northampton, was born at Compton in 1632, and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, which he left in 1652. After some years spent in travel on the Continent, he returned to England on the restoration of Charles II. For a short time he was a cornet in the army; then went to Cambridge, passed M.A., took orders, and was made canon of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1666. After various preferments, he was made bishop of Oxford in 1674, and was translated to the see of London in 1675 or 1676. He became tutor to the princesses Mary and Anne, and imbued them with his own earnestly Protestant sentiments. On the accession of James II he was dismissed from the council and from his deanery of the Royal Chapel on account of his vigorous opposition to popery. In 1686 he was tried before the lords commissioners (the notorious Jeffries presiding) on a charge of disobedience to the king's mandate (for the suspension of Dr. Sharp), and was suspended from his episcopal functions. He was restored in 1688, and on the accession of William he recovered all the offices from which he had been expelled. Bishop Compton sought to conciliate Dissenters, and to find means of reuniting them to the Church of England. His so-called "ultra- Protestantism" made him unpopular with High-churchmen. He died July 7, 1713. He published A Treatise of the Holy Communion (Tondon, 1677); a number of episcopal letters and charges, etc.