Francis Babington

Francis Babington D.D. (also Babbington, died 1569) was an English divine and an academic administrator at the University of Oxford. He was elected Master (head) of Balliol College, Oxford on 2 September 1559, a post he held until he resigned the following year on 27 October 1560. Babington was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1560 to 1562. He was also Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, from 1560 until he resigned in 1563. Life Babington is said to have been a native of Leicestershire, to have entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1544, and to have taken his B.A. degree in 1548–9. Two years later he was appointed Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and in 1552 became M.A. By 1555 he must have changed his religion, for at that date his name is found appended to the Roman Catholic articles of belief. About the same time he seems to have transferred his residence to Oxford, where he 'incepted' in arts 1554. After three years, he was unanimously chosen Proctor of his new university (1557), being already a Fellow of All Souls College. In 1557 and 1558, he successively took his Bachelor's and Doctor's degrees in Divinity; but Wood adds a special warning that such rapid promotion was only because Oxford University was very empty, and wanted "theologists to perform the requisite offices." There were only three doctors in theology who proceeded in six years; and sermons were so rare, that scarce one was given. It is only fair, however, to add that in another passage Wood mentions Francis Babington as renowned for his philosophical and logical disputations. In 1559, Queen Elizabeth I's visitors removed William Wright from the mastership of Balliol College, Oxford, and appointed Dr Babington instead. Dr Babington had no objection to heaping together a plurality of livings and offices. Between 1557 and 1560, he was rector of at least four parishes: Milton Keynes, Twyford, Sherrington Aldworth, and Adstock; and two or three of these he must have held together. Besides these preferments he was, in May 1560, appointed Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and was Sir John Mason's commissary or Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 1560, 1561, and 1562.