Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Price, Daniel
PRICE, DANIEL (1581–1631), divine, son of Thomas Price, vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury, was born there in 1581 (Owen and Blakeway, Shrewsbury, ii. 312). Becoming commoner of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, he matriculated 14 Oct. 1597. Before taking his degree he moved to Exeter College, ‘where, by the benefit of a diligent tutor, he became a smart disputant.’ He graduated B.A. 10 July 1601, and M.A. 22 May 1604. He then took orders, and became ‘a frequent and remarkable preacher, especially against papacy.’ He was made chaplain to Prince Henry in 1608, joined the Middle Temple in 1609, was admitted B.D. 6 May 1611, and D.D. 21 June 1613. He subsequently became chaplain to Prince Charles and James I, and preached repeatedly at court. In 1613 he published, on Prince Henry's death, five sermons, four of which were also issued in a collective edition, ‘Spirituall Odours’ (Oxford, 1613, 4to). In 1614 he published a sermon on the second anniversary of the Prince's death.
Price was rector of Wiston, Sussex, from 1607 to 1613, and from February 1610 vicar of Old Windsor. In 1612 he became rector of Lanteglos, Cornwall, in 1620 rector of Worthen in Shropshire, in 1624 canon-residentiary of Hereford, and justice of the peace for Shropshire, Montgomery, and Cornwall. He died at Worthen on 23 Sept. 1631, and was buried in the chancel of the church there. Over his grave was a brass plate (afterwards fixed in the wall), engraved with a Latin and English epitaph. A story was circulated in 1633 that he died a Roman catholic (cf. Puritanisme the Mother, by C. B., 1633, pp. 117–20; Cal. State Papers, 1631, p. 205). The story is due to a confusion of Daniel with Theodore Price [q. v.]
Price's separately published sermons numbered, between 1608 and 1625, at least thirteen; all but the last two appeared at Oxford. He also wrote ‘The Defence of Truth against a Book,’ by Humphrey Leech [q. v.], ‘falsely called the Triumph of Truth,’ Oxford, 1610; dedicated to Prince Henry. He contributed verses to ‘Threni Oxon.,’ 1613, and a commendatory poem before Parker's ‘Nightingale,’ 1632 (Addit. MS. 24492, f. 337).
A younger brother, Sampson Price (1585–1630), divine, born in 1585, became a bateler of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1601, and matriculated 30 April 1602, but graduated from Hart Hall B.A. in 1605, and M.A. in 1608. He proceeded from Exeter College B.D. 13 July 1615, and D.D. 30 June 1617, when he was also licensed to preach. He became a noted preacher in Oxford and its neighbourhood; and his sustained attacks on the papists gained him the sobriquet of ‘the mawle of heretics’ (Lewis Owen, Running Register, p. 99). He was lecturer at St. Martin Carfax, Oxford, and at St. Olave's, London; chaplain-in-ordinary to James I and Charles I; rector of All Hallows the Great from 28 July 1617, and vicar of Christ Church, London, from 9 Oct. 1617, holding both till his death (Newcourt, Repert. i. 240, 320); and vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury, in succession to his father, from 1620 to 1628. In July 1621 he was sent to the Fleet for some remark in a sermon preached before James I at Oatlands (State Papers, Dom. James I, cxxii. 23; wrongly referred to as Dr. Theodore Price). In 1626 he was entered of Gray's Inn, and on 14 July of the same year was collated to the prebend of Church Withington at Hereford (Le Neve, i. 505; Willis, Survey of Cathedrals, ‘Hereford,’ p. 566). He died late in 1630, and was buried under the communion-table in Christ's Church, Newgate Street. He published between 1613 and 1626 seven separate sermons, the last being entitled ‘London's Remembrancer for the Staying of the Contagious Sickness,’ London, 1626; dedicated to Lord-keeper Coventry.
[Cole MSS. vol. vi.; Hazlitt's Handbooks; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. and Fasti, ed. Bliss; Clark's Oxford Reg.; Le Neve's Fasti; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Middlesex County Records, iii. 170; Lansd. MS. 984, ff. 91, 112; information kindly sent by the bishop suffragan of Shrewsbury and vicar of St. Chad's. For Sampson, see also Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 489, Fasti, i. 305, &c.; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Boase's Exeter Coll. Reg. p. 210; Foster's Reg. of Gray's Inn.]