20 Facts About Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor was a cleric in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.

Jeremy Taylor is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of expression, and he is frequently cited as one of the greatest prose writers in the English language.

Jeremy Taylor went on to become chaplain in ordinary to King Charles I as a result of Laud's sponsorship.

Jeremy Taylor is remembered in the liturgical calendars of the Church of England and other Anglican churches.

Jeremy Taylor was born in Cambridge, the son of a barber, Nathaniel.

Archbishop William Laud sent for Jeremy Taylor to preach in his presence at Lambeth, and took the young man under his wing.

Jeremy Taylor did not vacate his fellowship at Cambridge before 1636, but he spent, apparently, much of his time in London, for Laud desired that his considerable talents should receive better opportunities for study and improvement than the obligations of constant preaching would permit.

Jeremy Taylor seems to have spent little time there.

Jeremy Taylor seems to have been in London during the last weeks of Charles I in 1649, from whom he is said to have received his watch and some jewels which had ornamented the ebony case in which he kept his Bible.

At Golden Grove Jeremy Taylor wrote some of his most distinguished works.

Jeremy Taylor owned a good estate, though probably impoverished by Parliamentarian exactions, at Mandinam, in Carmarthenshire.

From time to time Jeremy Taylor appears in London in the company of his friend John Evelyn, in whose Diary and correspondence his name repeatedly occurs.

Jeremy Taylor's works were translated into Welsh by Nathanael Jones.

Jeremy Taylor probably left Wales in 1657, and his immediate connection with Golden Grove seems to have ceased two years earlier.

In 1658, through the kind offices of his friend John Evelyn, Jeremy Taylor was offered a lectureship in Lisburn, County Antrim, by Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway.

Jeremy Taylor was induced to take it, and found in his patron's property at Portmore, on Lough Neagh, a congenial retreat.

Jeremy Taylor was made a member of the privy council of Ireland and, in 1660, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

At the instance of the Irish bishops Jeremy Taylor undertook his last great work, the Dissuasive from Popery, but, as he himself seemed partly conscious, he might have more effectually gained his end by adopting the methods of Ussher and William Bedell, and inducing his clergy to acquire the Irish language.

Jeremy Taylor was buried at Dromore Cathedral where an apsidal chancel was built in 1870 over the crypt where he was laid to rest.

Jeremy Taylor is said to have been a lineal descendant of Rowland Taylor, but the assertion has not been proved.