#15356, William STRODE (VII)

William was born in Devon and christened at Shaugh Prior. He was educated at Westminster School and went on to Christ Church, Oxford where he took his BA in 1621 and his MA in 1624. He was ordained priest in 1628 and gained a reputation as a preacher, becoming chaplain to his friend Bishop Corbett, formerly dean of Christ Church.  His first published piece was a Latin poem i 1619. William was appointed public orator of the university in1629, a post he held till his death.

When, in 1635 Charles I visited Woodstock Palace, near Oxford, William in his capacity as orator made a speech in the king’s honour; as a result, he was promised the next Christ Church canonry not linked to a specific chair that should fall vacant. The promised canonry was obtained in 1638 with the first of several benefices in the gift of the dean and chapter; he also became Doctor of Divinity. The canonry having conferred the right to marry he exercised it in July 1642 by marrying Mary, daughter of Doctor John Simpson, Prebend of Canterbury Cathedral. He had married into a family which shared his royalist and Laudian views (William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury). Following Laud’s arrest and impeachment, Strode was called to account before a Parliamentary Committee for adulatory expressions he had applied to the archbishop though he was dismissed without any penalty. Nevertheless, the terms in which he had addressed Laud were produced in Laud’s trial as ‘proof’ that the archbishop had assumed papal power.

The outbreak of war in August 1642 found William deeply divided from his family. It is unsurprising to find many of his Devon relations fighting against the king; they were related to Thomas Bamfyld (later to be Speaker in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament) and by marriage to John Pym, and were known as ‘notoriously disaffected’, according to Clarendon (Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon PC JP, Chief advisor to Charles I). While his cousins – or their husbands – were on the battlefield, Strode remained in Oxford carrying out his normal duties, though when the King made the city his headquarters and Christ Church his residence, life must have become difficult. Two sermons he preached before the king at that time were published by royal command. Apart from the birth of his daughter Jane in 1643, little more is known about his life in the final years. That he left no will suggests his death came suddenly and unexpectedly; he died in Oxford on 10th March 1645 and was buried in the Divinity Chapel of Christ Church Cathedral there, but surprisingly no memorial marks his grave. Uniquely the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford also serves as the chapel to Christ Church College. His widow moved to Bedfordshire but his papers seem to have remained in Oxford where they eventually came into the possession of the famous Oxford bookseller, Richard Davis.

His works are too numerous for listing here but the authoritative collection edited by Bertram Dobell includes the following gem of early Strode history:

William Strode was a scion of a good old Devonshire family which traces its descent from one Adam, who in the reign of King Henry III (1218-1272) added Strode to his name because he then had an habitation so-called in the parish of Ermington, near Modbury in Devonshire. When King Edward I sent his heralds into Devonshire to summon gentlemen to his assistance in the war against the King of Scotland, Adam Strode, of Strode, Esq. as appears from the Rolls in the Tower, was amongst those who were summoned.

He was called by Worthies of Devon, John Prince (died 1723) "this reverend divine, this rare poet, this charming orator."