Robert Frampton

Robert Frampton (1622-1708) was a bishop of the Church of England and later a Nonjuror. Born in Dorset, England in February 1622, to Robert and Elizabeth Frampton. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Christ Church, Oxford, where he received the B.A. (1641). He would later be honored with the D.D. degree in 1673. During the Civil War, during which he attempted to remain neutral, he served as master of the free school at Gillingham, Dorsetshire and was privately ordained by Robert Skinner, bishop of Oxford. He would serve as pastor at Gillingham and then as chaplain to the Earl of Elgin at Bedfordshire. From there he took a position as chaplain for the Levant Company at Aleppo, Syria in 1655. He returned to England in 1666.

Following his return from the Middle East, he was married to Mary Canning of Warwickshire (1667). He returned to Aleppo soon after his marriage and stayed three until 1670. Returning to London in 1671, he was appointed a preacher of the Rools and chaplain to the Lord Keeper. He was made a prebend at Gloucester and Salisbury in 1672 and rector of Oakford Fizpain, in Dorsetshire.

During his years as bishop he would preach at Whithall for James II. His preaching against Roman Catholicism incurred the king's displeasure, as did Frampton's decision not to install the Catholic president of Magdalene College's candidate to the living of Slimbridge, Gloucester. An opponent of James' Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Frampton was to join Archbishop William Sancroft's delegation that petitioned the king to revoke the Indulgence, but a delay in travel prevented him from being numbered among the Seven Bishops imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Despite his opposition to James II's Catholic policies, he refused the oaths to William and Mary and suffered deprival. A moderate Nonjuror, he joined Thomas Ken in strongly opposing the continuance of the Nonjuror schism through the consecration of George Hickes and Thomas Wagstaffe as bishops of a new nonjuring line. In his retirement he continued officiating at the parish church at Standish, Gloucestershire.

He died at his home at Standish, Gloucestershire on May 25 1708, being buried on the north side of the altar at the Standish church.

References

*T. Evans "The Life of Robert Frampton, bishop of Gloucester", (1876) and Robert Cornwall, "Robert Frampton," "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" (2004).