Laurence Womack, Bishop of St. David’s in Wales

Laurence Womock (also Lawrence Womach or Womack) (1612–1686) was an English bishop. He is best known for his controversial writings, some of which were signed Tilenus, after Daniel Tilenus, expressing his hostility to Calvinism in general, and the Synod of Dort in particular.

Biography

From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Womock retrieved December 2018

Background

Lawrence Womack, a namesake of his grandfather, was born 12 May 1612 at Lopham,[1] Norfolk, England where his father, Charles Womack, was rector. Lawrence's brother William became estranged from the family and emigrated to Virginia, United States of America in the 1630s where he became a Quaker. [citation needed] [controversial]

Comment: Cambridge Alumni lists as “s. of Laurence WOMOCKE (1593) grandson of Arthur WOMOCKE (1571) . ... Brother of Arthur (1622).

Education

Lawrence graduated B.A. from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1632, and M.A. in 1636.[2] He became chaplain to William Paget, 5th Baron Paget.[3][4]

Marriage and family

Lawrence was married three times.

By his first marriage, Lawrence had at least one son, Edward.

The second marriage, in West Bradford, Nov. 18, 1668, to Anne, daughter of John Hill and widow of Edward Alymer, of Claydon County, Suffolk. Ann was buried at Horringer Suffolk. They had a daughter, Anne, who died in 1685.

His third marriage, at St. Bartholomew, the Less, London, on April 25, 1670, was to Katherine Corbett, of Norwick, aged 40. She was still living in 1697. Lawrence Womack and Katherine Corbett had a son named John Richard Womack born in 1670 in Suffolk, England. John Richard Womack migrated to America and died in 1738 in Prince Edward County, Virginia. [6]

Ecclesiastical career

Lawrence had a benefice (an office endowed with fixed capital assets that provide a living through the revenue from such assets) in the west of England, where he attained fame by his preaching.

He was published by the royalist printer Richard Royston. Along with Thomas Pierce and Jeremy Taylor, he was one of the Arminian clerics attacked by Edward Bagshaw the younger and Henry Hickman.[

Death and memorial

Lawrence Womack died in Westminster, March 12, 1686; buried at St. Margaret's Church, London, where there is a tablet to his memory. The Anglican church of St. Margaret is situated in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square next to the “Big Ben” clock tower, and is known affectionately as the parish church of the Houses of Commons.[7] When Elizabeth I re-founded the Abbey as a collegiate church in 1560 she maintained its exemption from episcopal authority and made her new foundation a ‘royal peculiar’, subject to the authority of the Sovereign as Visitor.

Lawrence left his books and property to his nephew, Lawrence Womack, Rector of Castor, of Yarmouth.

Citations

• "Womock, Laurence (WMK629L)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. link
• 6. “Our Womack's English Womack's Genealogy” link
• Laurence Womack (Womock) Priest, Westminster Abbey link