Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Manwaring, Roger
MANWARING or MAYNWARING, ROGER (1590–1653), bishop of St. Davids, born at Stretton in Shropshire in 1590, was educated at the King's School, Worcester, and entered as a bible-clerk at All Souls' College, Oxford, in 1602. He is stated, somewhat doubtfully, to be descended through younger sons from John Manwaring or Mainwaring (d. 1410), sheriff of Cheshire under Henry IV (see Burke, Extinct Baronetcies, p. 334). He graduated B.A. in 1608, M.A. on 6 July 1611, and accumulated the degrees of B.D. and D.D. on 2 July 1625. He was collated to the rectory of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, London, on 3 June 1616, and about 1626 was appointed chaplain in ordinary to Charles I. In this capacity he preached before the king on 4 July 1627 at Oatlands on ' Religion,' and on the 29th following at Alderton on ' Allegiance,' In the first sermon he asserted that the king's royal command imposing taxes and loans without consent of parliament did ' so far bind the conscience of the subjects of this kingdom that they could not remse the payment without peril of damnation,' an illustration of their probable fate being supplied by the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; in the second sermon he maintained that the authority of parliament was not necessary for the raising of aids and subsidies. The sermons were printed in August 1627, by I. H. for R. Badger, London, 4to, ostensibly 'by command of his majesty,' though the license and order for printing were subsequently assigned to the maleficent influence of Laud. They were reprinted in 1 667 and 1 709 (cf. Forster, Eliot, i. 387 n.; Lowndes, Bibl. Man. 1469). In the following May he repeated the substance of these sermons in his parish church. Phelips, in the House of Commons, had already in memorable language protested against the absolutist tendency of Manwaring's sermons (Gardiner, vi. 237). Rouse and other more prominent members took the matter up, and on 9 June 1628 Pym carried up to the lords the charges which had been gradually collected against the preacher. He was charged with trying 'to infuse into the conscience of his majesty the persuasion of a power not bounding itself with law,' with seeking ' to blow up parliamentary powers, not much unlike Faux and his followers,' or, in the words of Pym, with 'endeavouring to destroy the king and kingdom by his divinity.' Manwaring's condemnation followed, and he was sentenced to be imprisoned during the pleasure of the house, to pay a fine of 1,000l., and to be suspended for three years. He was I also disabled from holding any ecclesiastical dignity or secular office. On 23 June Manwaring, with tears in his eyes, humbly repented and acknowledged his errors and indiscretions at the bar of the upper house, after which he was removed to the Fleet, where he remained until the dissolution. A few day 8 after the sentence the kinff, at the request of parliament, issued a proclamation for the suppression of Manwaring's book, in which, although ' the grounds were rightly laid, yet in divers passages, inferences, and applications trenching upon the law of the land ... he [Manwaring hath so far erred that he hath drawen upon himselfe the most just censure and sentence of the high court of Parliament' ('Proclamation' in British Museum, also printed in Rymer, Fœdera, xviii. 1025). Charles is said to have remarked with regard to the sentence: 'He that will preach more than he can prove, let him suffer for it; I give him no thanks for giving me my due.' He nevertheless directed Heath,the attorney-general, to prepare Manwaring's pardon as early as 6 July, and in the course of the same month he presented Manwaring to the living of Stanford Rivers, Essex, with a dispensation to hold it together with St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. He held the former living down to 1641, and in the meantime was collated rector of Muckleston, Staffordshire, in 1630, and of Mugginton, Derbyshire, in 1631. On 28 Oct. 1633 he was appointed dean of Worcester (Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 71), and in December 1635 he was consecrated by Laud to the bishopric of St. Davids, a proceeding which subsequent lv found a place among the numerous charges Drought against the archbishop. No sooner did the Short parliament meet in March 1640 than the lords proceeded to question Manwaring's appointment. On 27 April the king could with difficulty prevent them from passing a fresh censure upon him, and on the following day he was deprived of his vote in the upper house (Nalson, ii. 836). Fresh charges were preferred against him concerning his conduct while dean of Worcester. He was accused of popish innovations in directing that the king's scholars, forty in number, ' usually coming tumultuously into the choir,' should come in 'bimatim,' and of exhibiting a sociability and joviality ill befitting his office. By the Long parliament he was in consequence imprisoned, losing all his preferments, and relapsing into poverty and obscurity, when he was greatly befriended by Sir Henry Herbert [q. v.] 'For the last two years of his life,' says Lloyd, 'not a week passed over his head without a message or an injury, which he desired God not to remember against his adversaries, and adjured all his friends to forget,' He died at Carmarthen on 1 July 1653, 'after he had endured many miseries,' and was buried by the altar in the collegiate church at Brecknock, where a long Latin inscription commemorates his virtues.
Wood says of him that he had some curiosity in learning, but greater zeal for the church of England. 'It is said,' he adds, 'that he was much resolved on three things : 1. The redemption of captives. 2. The conversion of recusants. 3. The undeceiving of seduced sectaries. . . . Mr. [William] Fulman [q. v.], who married this bishops granddaughter, used to report a remarkable story concerning a loving dog which he kept several years before he died, that after his master was dead sought for him in all the walks that he used to frequent, at length finding the church door open, went to his grave, not covered, and there he remain'd till he languished to death,'
Mainwaring's name is usually thus spelt by his contemporaries, though on the title-page of his printed sermons it is given Maynwayring. He was probably connected, but remotely, with the Maynwarings or Mainwarings' of Over Peover and Ightfield, whose name, according to Lower, assumes 131 different forms (Patronym. Brit.)
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 811; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Lansdowne MS. 985, f. 101 (White Kennett's collections); Harl. MS. 980, f. 326; Freeman and Jones's St. Davids, p. 332; Manby's Hist. and Antiq. of St. Davids, p. 160; Theophilus Jones's Hist. of Brecknockshire; Lloyd's Memoires, 1677, pp. 272–6; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, pt. ii. p. 16; Hacket's Life of Williams, 1714, p. 174; Chambers's Biog. Illustr. of Worcestershire, p. 194; Prynne's Canterburie's Doome, p. 352; Sanderson's Hist. of Charles I, 1658, p. 115; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 612, ii. 547; State Papers, Dom. 1628, passim; State Trials, iii. 335–58; Ranke's Hist. of England, i. 586; Gardiner's Hist. of England, 1603–40, vols. vi. vii. and ix.; Parl. Hist. ii. 377; The Proceedings of the Lords and Commons in the year 1628 against Roger Manwaring, D.D., the Sacheverell of his day, for two Seditious, High-flying Sermons, London, 1709.]