William Heywood
Open-knowledge reference entry
William Heywood or Haywood (1599/1600–1663) was a Church of England clergyman who supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. He later became domestic chaplain to Archbishop William Laud, chaplain in ordinary to King Charles I, prebendary at St Paul's Cathedral and Rector of St Giles in the Fields church in London.
Biography
Early life and education
Heywood was born in Bristol in 1600 to Mr William Heywood, a cooper. His brothers were Edmund, Thomas and Henry and his sister was named Mary.
Educated at Oxford he appears to have enjoyed early and easy success in the Church of England becoming successively domestic chaplain to Archbishop William Laud, chaplain in ordinary to Charles I and a prebendary at St Paul's Cathedral before being appointed by Laud to the rectory of St Giles in the Fields in London.
Rector of St Giles in the Fields and Civil War
During his time at St Giles Heywood became intractably embroiled in the religious controversy over ritualism that was emerging in the Church of England.
Heywood, under Laud's patronage, began to ornament and decorate St Giles in the High Church (Laudian) fashion and to alter the ceremonial of the sacraments. This provoked a faction of the Protestant parishioners of St Giles to present Parliament with a petition listing and enumerating the 'popish reliques' with which Heywood had introduced 'at needless expense to the parish' as well as the 'Superstitious and Idolatrous manner of administration of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper'. The offending ceremonial was closely described by the parishioners in their complaint to parliament:They [the Clergy] enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum in which place they reade their second Service, and it is divided into three parts, which is acted by them all three, with change of place, and many duckings before the Altar, with divers Tones in their Voyces, high and low, with many strange actions by their hands, now up then downe, This being ended, the Doctor takes the Cups from the Altar and delivers them to one of the Subdeacons who placeth' them upon a side Table, Then the Doctor kneeleth to the Altar, but what he doth we know not, nor what hee meaneth by it. . .
At this time the interior of the church was overhauled by Heywood and provided with numerous ornaments including an elaborate screen of carved oak.
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