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Showing posts from September, 2026

'Excellently learned, pious and charitable': Nelson's 'Life of Bull' and the good bishop's death

He was buried about a Week after his Death at Brecknock, and lies, as I am informed, between two of his Predecessors, Bishop Manwaring and Bishop Laucy, and his Funeral was attended with great Numbers of the Gentry and Clergy, both of the County of Caermarthen and Brecknock.  It was on 17th February 1710 that Bishop George Bull passed from this earthly life. In Robert Nelson -in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull - fittingly notes that Bull was laid to rest alongside two particular predecessors in the See of St Davids. Roger Maynwaring was bishop 1636-46, William Lucy 1660-1677 - the last bishop before the Parliament abolished episcopacy and the first bishop after the Restoration. Nelson's reference to Bull's mortal remains resting between two predecessors whose episcopates reflected "the late unhappy confusions" was hardly without significance: it was a reflection of Bull's own experiences during the Interregnum and of his Tory loyalties. Bull had initially reques...