GLYN
,
WILLIAM
(
1504
-
1558
),
bishop
.
Born in
1504
, son of
John
Glyn
of
Heneglwys
,
Anglesey
,
Glyn
was educated at
Queens' College
,
Cambridge
(
B.A.
1527
,
M.A.
1530
,
B.D.
1538
,
D.D.
1554
); he became
Fellow
of
Queens
',
1530
; was one of original
Fellows
of
Trinity
,
1546
; and was
vice-master
of
Trinity
,
1546-51
. Like his friend and contemporary,
Thomas
Thirlby
(see
D.N.B.
), he seems to have accepted the religious changes of
Henry
VIII
's reign, although remaining at heart a
Catholic
; and he was elected
lady Margaret Professor of Divinity
,
1544
. He disapproved of the extreme
Protestantism
of
Edward
VI
's reign, and he was one of the disputants who defended Transubstantiation before the
Royal Commission
of
June, 1549
; he resigned his chair in the same month. He later conformed and was instituted
rector
of
S. Martin's
,
Ludgate
,
1550
, and of
Heneglwys
,
Anglesey
,
1552
. On the accession of
Mary
, he was instituted to the livings of
Cilrhedyn
and
Lampeter Velfrey
(
S. Davids
). He was elected
president
of
Queens' College
in
Dec. 1553
and was one of the
Cambridge
delegates sent to
Oxford
to dispute with
Latimer
and
Ridley
in
April, 1554
. In
1554
he was made
vice-chancellor
, and in
1555
went on a diplomatic mission to
Rome
with
Thirlby
and others. Appointed
bishop of Bangor
,
1555
, he enforced
Catholic
doctrines at regular synods of his clergy. There is no evidence of persecution in his diocese, and his tolerance towards married clergy may have been due to the fact that his own father and grandfather were
priests
; he himself had a son (
Gruffydd
Glyn
of
Pwllheli
,
sheriff of Caernarvonshire
,
1563-1564
).
Glyn
d.
21 May 1558
. His elder half-brother,
JOHN
GLYN
, was
dean of Bangor
,
1505?-1534
and his brother,
GEOFFREY
GLYN
(d.
1557
), founded
Friars School
,
Bangor
.
Bibliography:
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
;
-
Venn
,
Alumni Cantabrigienses
;
-
A. Ivor Pryce
,
The Diocese of Bangor in the sixteenth
century being a digest of the registers of the bishops,
A.D. 1512-1646
, 1923
;
-
Barber
,
The history of Friars School, Bangor
,
1901
;
-
J. E. Griffith
,
Pedigrees of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire
Families
, 1914
, 239;
-
Archaeologia Cambrensis
,
1883
, 151;
-
Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian
Society and Field Club
,
1930
, 109 and
1931
, 115.
Author:
Professor Glyn Roberts, M.A., (1904-1962), Bangor
