William Heywood

William Heywood (Haywood) was buried at the foot of the pulpit in Westminster Abbey on 17th July 1663 but he has no gravestone or monument. He was a son of William, a cooper from Bristol, where he was born in 1600, and his brothers were Edmund, Thomas and Henry and his sister was Mary.

Educated at Oxford he was a domestic chaplain to Archbishop Laud, chaplain in ordinary to Charles I, prebendary at St Paul's cathedral and rector of St Giles in the Fields in London. He became prebendary (clergyman) at the Abbey in 1638. During the Commonwealth period he was imprisoned and suffered many hardships, having to teach at a private school in Wiltshire until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 when he was re-instated at Westminster. His wife Alice (Manning) was buried with him on 10th November 1675. Their son John was baptised at St Giles in 1639 and buried not long after his father on 2nd March 1664.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography