HEYLYN, PETER: English controversialist and church historian; b. at Burford (16 m. w.n.w. of Oxford), Oxfordshire, Nov. 29, 1600; d. in London May 8, 1662. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A.,1617; M.A.,1620; B.D.,1629; D.D., 1633), and held a fellowship there (1618-29). He was made chaplain to the king in 1630, prebendary of Westminster Cathedral 1631, treasurer of the chapter in 1637, and subsequently subdean. In 1633 he was presented by Charles I. to the benefice of Houghton in the bishopric of Durham, which he exchanged for Alresford, Hampshire. In 1637 he was presented to the living of Islip, Oxfordshire. This he at once exchanged for the living of South Warren, Hampshire.

In the religious controversies preceding the civil war Heylyn proved a stanch supporter of the king and the High-church party. On account of the bitterness he had shown toward the Puritans he was singled out for punishment by the committees of the Long Parliament. He was deprived of pre ferments worth £800, and heavily fined; and his parsonage at Alresford was stripped of its contents, including his valuable library. To escape arrest he was forced to wander in various disguises till 1648, when he settled at Münster Lovel, Oxfordshire, the home of an elder brother. In 1653 he removed to Lacy's Court, near Abingdon. At the Restoration he regained his former important position in the councils of the Church, and would have been made a bishop but for physical infirmity. As subdean he attended the coronation of Charles II., Apr. 23, 1661, and on May 29 following hA preached at West minster Abbey a jubilant sermon on the return of Charles. He was an inveterate polemist, and was inclined to find Puritan tendencies even in the works of his fellow churchmen. Of his numerous writings, which are generally marred by prejudice and controversial rancor, the more important are: MicTocosnme (Oxford, 1625), his once famous lec tures at Oxford on geography, which he enlarged into Cosmography (London, 1652); The History of . . St. George. of Cappadocia (London, 1631); ExtraneusVaPuleu (1656), directed against Hamon 1'Estrange and Nicholas Bernard, his cleverest piece of controversial writing; Ecclesia restaurata, or the His" of the Reformation of the Church of England (1661; ed. J. C. Robertson for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1849), his best book, but strongly biased; Cypriaxius Anglicus, or the History of the Life arid Death of . . William Laud (London, 1668), the chief authority for Laud's private life, from which has been extracted The Doctrine and Discipline of the English Church (Ox ford, 1846); Aerius redivivus, or the History of the Presbyterians (1670), a violent arraignment of the Presbyterians; and Historical and Miscellaneous Tracts (London, 1681), containing a life of Heylyn by G. Vernon.

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Bibliography: The Life prefixed to the tracts (ut sup.) is a composite production, originally by George Vernon, revised without Vernon's knowledge by John Bernard (or Bernard), Heylyn's son-in-law, and re-revised, again without the knowledge of either Vernon or Bernar, by Thomas Badow; Vernon then published his Life of Dr. Peter Heylyn, London, 1882, which evoked Barnard, e Theologohiaforicus, or the True Life of . . Peter Hoyt^ ib. 1883 (of. on these 1. Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature, iii. 238, ib. 1849). Consult further: David Lloyd, Memoirs of the Limes . . . of . . . Personages that suffered . . for the nt Rely, pp. 526-528, ib. 1877; John Walker,

Sufferings of the Clergy, ii 190, ib 1714; A. A Wood, Athena Oxonienses, ed. P. Bliss, iii. 662-689, 4 vols., London, 1813-20; DNB, xzvi. 319-323.