Sir Christopher Perkins

Priest and diplomat Sir Christopher Perkins was buried in the north ambulatory of Westminster Abbey on 1st September 1622 but he seems never to have had an inscribed gravestone and there is no monument to him.

He was born in 1543 and educated at Winchester College and Oxford university. For religious reasons he left England and became a Jesuit priest in Rome and later had teaching posts in Germany. He returned to England with a grandson of Lord Burghley and was converted to the Church of England. Through the influence of the Cecil family he became dean of Carlisle in 1596 and held the office until his death.

He came to London and held the post of Master of Requests. In 1603 he was knighted and in 1617 he married Anne Brett (nee Beaumont), mother in law of the Earl of Middlesex, Lord High Treasurer of England but they had no children. He undertook diplomatic missions to Poland, Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire and was Member of Parliament for Ripon in Yorkshire. He lived near the Abbey in Canon Row.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

History of Parliament online

"The Court of King James the First" by Godfrey Goodman edited by J. Brewer 1839