Dudley Fenner (c. 1558–1587) was an English puritan divine. He helped popularise Ramist logic in the English language. Fenner was also one of the first theologians to use the term "covenant of works" to describe God's relationship with Adam in the Book of Genesis. See more at Wikipedia

Biography

From https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/f/dudley_fenner.html

DUDLEY FENNER (c. 1558-1587), English puritan divine, was born in Kent and educated at Cambridge University. There he became an adherent of Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603), and publicly expounded his presbyterian views, with the result that he was obliged to leave Cambridge without taking his degree. For some months he seems to have assisted the vicar of Cranbrook, Kent, but it is doubtful whether he received ordination. He next followed Cartwright to Antwerp, and, having received ordination according to rite of the Reformed church, assisted Cartwright for several years in preaching to the English congregation there. The leniency shown by Archbishop Grindal to puritans encouraged him to return to England, and he became curate of Cranbrook in 1583. In the same year, however, he was one of seventeen Kentish ministers suspended for refusing to sign an acknowledgment of the queen's supremacy and of the authority of the Prayer Book and articles. He was imprisoned for a time, but eventually regained his liberty and spent the remainder of his life as chaplain in the Reformed church at Middleburgh (in the Netherlands).

A list of his authentic works is given in Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1858-1861). They rank among the best expositions of the principles of puritanism.

Family

From MyHeritage tree

• Dudley Fenner (1561 - 1587)
• Birth: Was aged 6 at this father's ipm in 1567. DNB article says he was born in Kent. 1561 Sussex or Kent, England
• Death:1587 Middelburg, Zeeland, Netherlands

Family members

• Father: John Fenner, of Amberley; MP 1509 - 1566
• Wife: Joan Whitaker (born Taylor) 1560 - 1595
• Brother: William Fenner, (fate unknown) 1563 - ?

Children:

• Freegift Fenner, (died child) 1580 - 1583
• Wellabroad Fenner, (died infant) 1585 - 1588
• Faintnot Fenner, (unmarried) 1585 - 1604
• Morefruit Fenner, (unmarried) 1587 - 1602

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From https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Fenner,_Dudley_(DNB00)_

For some years he remained at Antwerp assisting Cartwright, and married there; but the disturbed state of the Low Countries and the mildness of Archbishop Grindal towards puritans tempted him to return to England. ...
... Fenner was finally apprehended and kept in prison for some months, when he subscribed for the purpose of getting abroad, and retired to the charge of the reformed church of Middleburgh, where Cartwright had settled. Here he died towards the end of 1587. He would seem to have had the sympathy of Mr. Fletcher, for the birth of his daughter in June 1585 is entered in the register of Cranbrook Church, ‘Faint not Fenner, daughter of D. F. Concional. Digniss.’ The last two words probably mean ‘most worthy preacher.’ A son, [SIC: daughter] born December 1583, is given the name of More Fruit Fenner. Fenner's widow became the wife of Dr. William Whitaker, and bore him eight children. [SIC: one surviving]

Full article: Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 18. edited by Sir Leslie Stephen. Page 317 - 319 GoogleBooks

Family notes

From Religious Politics in Post-reformation England: Essays in Honour of Nicholas ... edited by Kenneth Fincham, Peter Lake. “Dudley Fenner & the peculiarities of Puritan nomenclature.” Page 119 - GoogleBooks

... Fenner was a native of Kent, and was reported by Waldegrave to have been an ‘heir of great possessions.’ He was a fellow-commoner of Peterhouse, (which confirms his gentry status), but left Cambridge without a degree ...
... More-fruit was the name he chose for his own daughter. Free-Gift Fenner, sister of More-fruit, born overseas, died in Cranbrook in September 1583. Faint-not Fenner was baptized two years later. Well-abroad Fenner was buried in Cranbrook, after her father’s death. Presumably Joan Fenner had remained in Cranbrook after her husband’s withdrawal to self imposed exile in Middleburg ....

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Frou-Frou, Frisby & Brick: The Book of Unfortunate Baby Names By Russell Ash. GoogleBooks

http://virginiahuguenot.blogspot.com/2010/10/conjugal-connections.h...

William Whitaker, English Puritan divine (1548-1595), married the sister-in-law of Laurence Chaderton, English Puritan (c. 1536-1640) and one of the translators of the King James Bible. Whitaker's second wife was the widow of Dudley Fenner (c. 1558-1587), author of the first Puritan systematic theology.

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Origins

From A History of the Castles, Mansions, and Manors of Western Sussex. By Dudley George Cary Elwes. Page 97. GoogleBooks

Like Old Fishbourne {see p. 38), New Fishbourne was for a time monastic property, having been granted by Earl Roger (who held it at the Conquest) to the abbey of Seez in Normandy. Mr. Dallaway thinks it was first constituted a parish in 1244 (28 Hen. III.) when the boundaries of the Broill were determined between the Abbot of Seez and Ralph, Bishop of Chichester.
At the dissolution of alien priories by Henry V., it was granted to the nunnery of Syon, co. Middx., its revenues, being then valued at ^28 2s. 8d., again reverting to the Crown. At the general dissolution it was purchased (5 and 6 Ph. and Mary) by Sir Thomas White and others and was by them transferred to John Fenner, and after the death of his son, Dudley Fenner, passed to the Bowyers of Denham Court, co. Bucks.

t "The manor with 27 messuages, &c. in the vill of New Fishbourne by William Bowier and his wife alienated to Henry Mavnard, Knight, and others, to the uses of the said Wm. Bowier, held in chief by license dated [1603] 2 Sep. 3 Jac. 1." (Burrcll MS. 5689, p. 2 22.)
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/b...

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Notes of post mortem inquisitions taken in Sussex. 1 Henry VII, to 1649 and after. Abstracted and translated by F.W.T. Attree. Page 89 Archive.Org408.

• JOHN FENNER of Amberley, esq. Vol. 145, No. 15.
• Steyning, 26 Sept. 9 Eliz. Died 25 Dec. 9 Eliz. [1566]
• Heir, son Dudley Fenner, aged 6 (?).
• Lands. Was seized of manors of Fishbourne, Bonewikes, and Kumbalswike, but sold them before his death

https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/f...

The electoral patron at Midhurst was the 1st Viscount Montagu, who returned Catholics to the first two Elizabethan Parliaments. The Act passed in the first session of the 1563 Parliament made it mandatory for newly-elected MPs to take the oath of supremacy, and it is interesting to see that the parliamentary successor of Montagu’s Catholic steward William Denton, whose death had caused the vacancy, was either the uncle or the father of Dudley Fenner the puritan divine. Little is known about either of these brothers and namesakes. The former was the father of Edward Fenner the judge, the latter was of Amberley, Sussex. John Fenner of Amberley was born 1509, classed as a ‘favourer of godly proceedings’ in 1564, and died 25 Dec. 1566, a few days before the end of the Parliament.

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A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling and A M Rowland, 'Ifield: Manors and other estates', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 3, Bramber Rape (North-Eastern Part) Including Crawley New Town, ed. T P Hudson (London, 1987), pp. 60-63. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt3/pp60-63 [accessed 3 October 2019].

The manor of BONWICKS was held of Ifield in 1566. (fn. 52) A Walter of Bonwick owned land possibly in Ifield in the 13th century, (fn. 53) and a yardland, 46 a., and rents in Ifield were settled on John Bonwick in 1381-2. (fn. 54) The 110 a. of land together with rents in Ifield settled on Thomas Fenner in 1506-7 (fn. 55) may have been the same, since John Fenner died seised of Bonwicks c. 1513. John's estate, subject to the life interest of his daughter-in-law Anne, then the wife of Thomas Culpeper, descended to his grandson John, (fn. 56) presumably the John Fenner who died seised of Bonwicks manor, then first so called, and 320 a. in Ifield and Rusper in 1566, leaving as heir his son Dudley. (fn. 57) Thomas Gage was said to be lord in 1579. (fn. 58)

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References

• Patrick Collinson, ‘Fenner, Dudley (c.1558–1587)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 link “Fenner, Dudley (c. 1558–1587), Church of England clergyman and Calvinist theologian, was a native of Kent, said by the puritan printer Robert Waldegrave to have been 'heir of great possessions' (Fenner, Certain Godly and Learned Treatises, Waldegrave's Epistle) ....
• "Fenner, Dudley (FNR575D)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. link Dudley FENNER Approx. lifespan: 1557–1587 Matric. Fell.-Com. from Peterhouse 1575:04ET: b. in Kent , Minister at Marden, [Kent], and Cranbrook, Kent , 1575-6, and 1583-4 Afterwards a reformed minister at Antwerp, [Belgium], and later chaplain to the English merchants at Middelburg, [Holland], Author, Aris of Logic and Rhetoric ; and various theological treatises. Died at Middelburg, [Holland], c1587 ( D.N.B. ; Cooper II. 72)