Kettell was one of the older heads of houses who, without being inclined to the 'factious in religion,' disliked Laud's high-handed reforms. He was a 'right church of England man;' saved the old paintings in die college chapel from the puritan commissioner, Lord Say and Sele; lectured on the Thirty-nine Articles, and talked of roodlofts, wafers, and the old rites which he could just remember. Outside Oxford Kettell held the rectory of Garsington, which was attached to his office of president, and was private chaplain to Sir Francis Walsingham's widow and to Bishop Bilson of Winchester. Aubrey, who was admitted a commoner of Trinity in 1642, and knew Kettell in his old age, narrates many anecdotes of his eccentricities, and quotes specimens of his quaint remarks. Aubrey also mentions his secret charity to poor scholars, and his contemptuous treatment of the strange visitors whom the civil wars brought to the university. His death, in Aubrey's opinion, was hastened by 'the dissoluteness of the time.' He died about 17 July 1643, and was buried at Garsington on 5 Aug.
Kettell's portrait, preserved at Trinity, is a mere daub, but agrees fairly with Aubrey's description of him as 'a very tall well-grown man, with a fresh ruddy complexion; he was soon white; his gowne, and surplice, and hood being on, he had a terrible gigantique aspect, with his sharp gray eies. The ordinary gowne he wore was of russet cloth.' He does not seem to have published anything. A large book of manuscript pieces in his handwriting, given by President Bathurst to Wood (now Bodleian Library MSS. Wood, f. 21), probably contains nothing original. Aubrey states that 'he had two wives, if not three, hut no child,' and tlint his second wife was the widow of Edward Villiers of Hothorpe, Northamptonshire, whose daughter Elizabeth married George Bathurst, and was the mother of Ralph Bathurst [q. v.], president of Trinity College, Oxford; but there are probably some inaccuracies here. His wife was buried at Garsington in 1623-4, and an infant daughter in 1606; one, 'Mrs. Barbara Villiers, widow,' was the wife of his brother John Kettell.
[Registers and other documents in the archives of Trinity College, Oxford; notes in Warton's Lives of Pope and Bathurst; Life by John Aubrey, printed in Bodleian Letters, ii. 417; Pope's Life of Seth Ward; information from King's Langley and Garsington parish registers, kindly communicated by the Rev. A. B. Strettell, vicar, and the Rev. David Thomas, rector; Clark's University Register, vol. ii. pts. ii. and iii.]
KETTERICH or CATRIK, JOHN (d. 1419), successively bishop of St. Davids, Lichfield and Coventry, and Exeter, was probably educated at one of the universities, since he is described as LL.B., and as a licentiate in decretals (Nicolas, Proc. Privy Council, iii. 5, 20). From his later career it may be conjectured that he became a clerk in the royal service, but the first mention of him is on 1 Jan. 1402, when he obtained the prebend of Brampton at Lincoln. He subsequently received a variety of preferments: the prebends of Croperdy, Lincoln, on 14 July 1402, of Stow Longa, Lincoln, 3 April 1406, and of Osbaldwick, York, 20 Jan. 1407. On 25 March 1406 he was made treasurer of Lincoln, but exchanged this post for the mastership of St. Mary Magdalen's Hospital, Sandown, Surrey, on 14 Nov. following. From 1410 to 1414 he was archdeacon of Surrey. Between 1406 and 1411 he was frequently employed on embassies to the French king and the Duke of Burgundy (Fœdera, viii. 432, 504, 546, 571, 585–6, 599, 636–7, 677, 694). On 22 May 1413 he was appointed king's proctor at the papal court (ib. ix. 12). On 27 April 1414 he was papally provided to the see of St. Davids, was consecrated by John XXIII at Bologna on 29 April, and received possession of the temporalities on 2 June. But on 13 Oct. he received custody of the temporalities of Lichfield and Coventry during a vacancy, and on 1 Feb. 1415 was translated to that see, the spiritualities being restored on 21 June.
Meanwhile, on 20 Oct. 1414, Ketterich was appointed one of the English representatives at the council of Constance, and was apparently present throughout its sittings. He took part in the proceedings which attended the deposition of John XXIII, being one of the commissaries for receiving evidence against that pontiff. He was also one of those appointed to elect the new pope, Martin V, 11 Nov. 1417 (H. von der Hardt, iv. 171, 182, v. 16; Walsingham, Hist. Angl. ii. 318). In 1416 Ketterich was concerned in a variety of negotiations with the Duke of Burgundy, with Alfonso of Arragon, the princes of Germany, the Hanse, and Genoa (Fœdera, ix. 374, 410–15). After the death of Robert Hallam [q. v.] in September 1417, the Cardinal des Ursins wrote to Henry V recommending Ketterich as his successor at Salisbury on account of the judgment and learning he had shown during the council (ib. ix. 489). On the conclusion of the council he accompanied Martin V into Italy at the beginning of 1418, and apparently resumed his old position at the papal court. In April 1419 he had authority to take all Normans at
