Nielsen Hayden genealogy

Rev. Thomas Stoughton[1]

Male Bef 1557 - Abt 1622  (> 65 years)


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  • Name Thomas Stoughton  [2
    Prefix Rev. 
    Alternate birth Abt 1555  [3
    Alternate birth Abt 1556  Sandwich, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Birth Bef 1557  Sandwich, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    Gender Male 
    Death Abt 1622  [5
    Person ID I4733  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
    Last Modified 20 Jun 2022 

    Father Francis Stoughton,   b. Abt 1530, Ash-juxta-Sandwich, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Abt 5 Aug 1557, St. Peter's, Sandwich, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 27 years) 
    Mother Agnes 
    Family ID F1812  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Katherine,   b. Abt 1560   d. 18 Apr 1603, Coggeshall, Braintree, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 43 years) 
    Marriage 1585  Naughton, Suffolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Children 
    +1. Thomas Stoughton,   b. Bef 9 Jul 1588   d. 25 Mar 1661, Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut Find all individuals with events at this location (Age > 72 years)
    +2. Elizabeth Stoughton,   b. Abt 1595, Burstead Magna, Essex, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Bef 30 Mar 1647, Ipswich, Essex, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 52 years)
    +3. Israel Stoughton,   b. Bef 18 Feb 1603   d. 1644, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age > 40 years)
    Family ID F4340  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 8 Apr 2020 

  • Photos
    Two Profitable Treatises (1616)
    Two Profitable Treatises (1616)

  • Notes 
    • Described by Robert Charles Anderson as "a leading light of Elizabethan Puritanism who was silenced in the reign of James I and spent the rest of his life producing theological pamphlets." [The Great Migration Begins, volume 3, p. 1777.]

      Amelia Morrow, from Connections: Morrow, Porter, Sanders, etc.:

      Matriculated at Queens College, Cambridge 1573 and received the degree of bachelor of arts in 1576-7. Made a Fellow of the College in 1579 and became a Master of Arts in 1580. He was ordained deacon and priest at Lincoln, Feb 13, 1582. In July 1586, he was installed Rector at Naughton in Suffolk. [...]

      Between 1594 and 1600, Thomas assisted the minister at Burstead Magna, Essex, where the birth of his daughter Judith is recorded. In 1600, Thomas became vicar at Coggeshall in Essex. The birth record of Israel appears in this church, as well as the burial of Thomas's wife Katherine. Thomas was "deprived of his vicarage" in 1606, but the reason was not recorded. It may have been nonconformity with the Church, as Thomas was frequently recorded as outspoken. [...]"

      Thomas published a treatise called "Two Profitable Treatises" (British Museum 4371, a.a. 27) in 1616 that was written "from my chamber in the Hospital at St. Bartholomewes by Sandwich Sept. 3, 1616." The treatise says he was born and bred in Sandwich. His treatise "The Christians Sacrifice as set forth in Romans XII, 1, 2" (British Museum 4371, b.20) was printed in 1622 "with the Author's postscript to his children as it were his last Will and Testament unto them."

      Todd Whitesides, writing on FindaGrave.com:

      He was ordained deacon and priest at Lincoln Cathedral on Feb. 13, 1582, and was brought to the attention of Robert, 3rd Lord Rich by John Butler of Thoby Priory, Essex, and continued to benefit from Rich's patronage for many years. He was rector of Naughton from 1586 until 1594, at which time he was made curate of Great Burstead, Essex. He published "A general treatise against poperie, and in defence of the religion by publike avthoritie professed in England and other churches reformed" (Cambridge, 1598), which was dedicated to Lord Rich. In 1600 he was instituted vicar at Coggeshall at Lord Rich's presentation, but due to his nonconformity he was admonished by Bishop Richard Vaughan and deprived of Coggeshall by the High Commission in 1606. Despite being removed from his living it was reported in 1606 that he "doeth often expound the Word in his deske". In 1610 at Great Totham, Essex, he signed the dedicatory epistle to his work "The dignitie of Gods children". By 1616 he had returned to his native Sandwich, where he remained living in poverty until his death.

      He continued to expound on his beliefs, publishing 'Two Profitable Treatises' in 1616, followed up in 1622 with "The Christians Sacrifice", a text of some 251 pages, which was dedicated to his patron, who had since purchased the title Earl of Warwick. He signed the dedicatory epistle to this on 20 Aug. 1622 from "my poore lodging in the poor Hospitall called S. Bartholomewes by Sandwich in Kent", and further stated he was now "ready to be dissolved, and to laye down my earthly Tabernacle...the time of my departing being at hand..." Two days later he appended the work with "The Authors postscript to his Children as it were his Last Will and Testament unto them".

      At the end of his life he recalled being present at Hampton Court 43 years earlier, where he heard ministers preaching before Queen Elizabeth.

      In 1606 Stoughton was a legatee, along with others, in the will of Timothy Saint Nicholas, who "moste humblie thanckinge them for their faithefull endeavor and for their earnest labour and paines for the instruction of my conscience and the consciences of many men in the knowledge of Gods truthe and relligion". Described as "a silenced preacher", he received a bequest in the 1610 will of Alice Wade of Bildeston, Suffolk, and in 1612 was mentioned in the will of his first cousin Thomas Stoughton of St Paul's Parish, Canterbury. In the 1619 will of Charles Eure, esquire, fourth son of William, 2nd Lord Eure, Stoughton being described as of St Bartholomews in Sandwich, Kent received the generous bequest of £10.

      From The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and Their Audiences, 1590-1640 by Arnold Hunt (Cambridge University Press, 2010):

      Thomas Stoughton's Two Profitable Treatises (1616) [...] despite being "much enlarged" for print, was written in the style of an oral sermon so that readers could imagine it "rather...as presently by lively voice uttered, than as formerly by dead letter onely written." Whereas Dod and Cleaver had removed colloquial expressions in order to achieve a more dignified style, Stoughton went to the other extreme, filling the text with proverbial and colloqiual remarks ("soft fire maketh sweetest malt"; "Sathan bestirreth his stumps to hurt and destroy") and repetitions ("labour, labour, I beseech you"; "alas, alas"; "take heed, take heed") in order to recreate the experience of hearing a live sermon.


      Rev. Thomas Stoughton (~1555-~1622) = Katherine (1560-~1603)
      Elizabeth Stoughton (~1597-1647) = John Scudder (b. ~1590)
      Elizabeth Scudder (1625-1700) = Samuel Lathrop (1621-1700)
      Samuel Lathrop = Hannah Aldgate
      Hannah Lathrop = Jabez Perkins
      Hannah Perkins = Joshua Huntington
      Lydia Huntington = Ephraim Bill
      Lydia Bill = Joseph Howland
      Susan Howland = John Aspinwall
      Mary Rebecca Aspinwall = Isaac Roosevelt
      James Roosevelt = Sara Delano
      Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

      Rev. Thomas Stoughton (~1555-~1622) = Katherine (1560-~1603)
      Israel Stoughton (1603-1645) = Elizabeth Knight (d. 1681)
      Rebecca Stoughton (1641-1708) = William Tailer (1611-1682)
      Elizabeth Tailer (1667-1734) = John Nelson (d. 1734)1
      Mehitabel Nelson (1691-1775) = Capt. Robert Temple (1694-1754)
      Robert Temple (1728-1782) = Harriet Shirley (d. 1802)2
      Mehitabel Hester Temple (1758-1798) = Hans Blackwood, 3rd Baron Dufferin & Clanboye (1758-1839)
      Price Blackwood, 4th Baron Dufferin & Clanboye (1794-1841) = Helen Selina Sheridan (1807-1867)3
      Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 5th Baron Dufferin & Clanboye (1826-1902), Governor-General of Canada 1872-78; Viceroy of India 1884-88.

      1 One of the leaders of the 1689 revolt against Gov. Andros.

      2 Daughter of William Shirley, colonial governor of Massachusetts and later of the Bahamas.

      3 Granddaughter of playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

  • Sources 
    1. [S373] Adrian Benjamin Burke, John Blythe Dobson, and Janet Chevally Wolfe, "The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 165:245, October 2011; 166:46, January 2012.

    2. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011.

    3. [S122] Gary Boyd Roberts, "Update for Ancestors of American Presidents." Vita Brevis, 1 Dec 2015.

    4. [S376] Janet and Robert Wolfe Genealogy.

    5. [S2906] Puritans and Pedigrees: The Deep Roots of the Great Migration to New England by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2018.