Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnson, Robert (d.1559)
JOHNSON, ROBERT (d. 1559), canon of Worcester, took the degree of bachelor of the civil law at Cambridge in 1531 (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 203). He was appointed a canon of the church of Rochester on its refoundation in 1541, and was presented to a canonry in the church of Worcester on 10 July 1544 on the death of Dr. Thomas Baggard, whom he also succeeded as chancellor of that diocese. He had the prebend of Putston Major in the church of Hereford, 9 Sept. 1551, and was in that year incorporated B.C.L. at Oxford (Wood, Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 133). In 1552 he supported Henry Joliffe in a controversy with Hooper [see Joliffe, Henry]. Johnson was presented by Queen Mary to the rectory of Clun, Shropshire, 10 April 1553; installed prebendary of Stillington in the church of York 22 Feb. 1555–6; collated to the rectory of Bolton Percy, Yorkshire, in July 1558; and was admitted to the prebend of Norwell Overhall in the collegiate church of St. Mary, Southwell, 7 Sept. 1558. He died in 1559.
He was ‘esteemed learned and well read in the theological faculty,’ and wrote a book in Latin against Hooper, but did not publish it. After his death the manuscript came into the hands of his friend Henry Joliffe, who published it at Antwerp, with his own reply to Hooper, in 1564 (4to).
[Addit. MS. 5873, f. 21; Cranmer's Works (Cox), ii. 492; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 510; Kennett's MS. 46, p. 308; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 527, ii. 584, iii. 79, 439; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 902; Rymer's Fœdera, 1713, xv. 344; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 442.]