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5 unusual facts about Gilbert Burnet


Edmund Borlase

Borlase gave Bishop Gilbert Burnet some materials for the 'History' of the Reformation,' among which were papers relative to the English translation of the Bible.

Gilbert Burnet

He married three times, firstly to Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of John Kennedy, 6th Earl of Cassilis (died 1684); secondly to Mary Scott (died 1698), a Dutch heiress of Scots descent, and thirdly to Elizabeth Berkeley (née Blake), a religious writer of some note, who died in 1709.

John Oldmixon

His Critical history of England (1724-1726) contains attacks on Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and a defence of Bishop Gilbert Burnet, and its publication led to a controversy between Dr Zachary Grey and the author, who replied to Grey in his Clarendon and Whitlock compared (1727).

Roger Flexman

Flexman compiled a bibliography appended to his edition of Gilbert Burnet's Own Time, 1753–4, 4 vols.

Thomas Tenison

Tenison, according to Gilbert Burnet, "endowed schools including Archbishop Tenison's School, Lambeth, founded in 1685 and Archbishop Tenison's School, Croydon, founded in 1714, set up a public library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours".


Francis Atterbury

Atterbury's treatise, though highly praised by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, was more distinguished for the vigour of his rhetoric than the soundness of his arguments, and the Papists accused him of treason, and of having, by implication, called King James "Judas".

Grand Embassy of Peter the Great

On invitation of William III, Peter and part of the mission also went to England in January 1698, where the tsar, visited Gilbert Burnet and Edmond Halley in the Royal Observatory, the Royal Mint, the Royal Society the University of Oxford, and several shipyards and artillery plants.

John Chamberlayne

In the preface to a part of this published in 1719 he relates that Fagel assured Bishop Burnet "that it was worth his while to learn Dutch, only for the pleasure of reading Brandt's History of the Reformation".

John Grubham Howe

He took an active part against Gilbert Burnet for his 'Pastoral Letter,' and spoke vehemently against the prosecution of the war and on behalf of Sir John Fenwick.

Miles Prance

Finally, after being visited by William Boys, Gilbert Burnet, and William Lloyd, he confessed and said that two Irish priests, "Fitzgerald" and "Kelly", told him of a plot to kill Godfrey.

Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston

In September Preston presented a strongly worded memorial to the French king 'touching his seizing upon the citty of Orange, looking on it as done to himself’. In October 1683 the Earl of Sunderland by the king's commands gave Preston directions to let the ministers in France know 'what a very ill man Dr. Burnet was.'

Robert Moray

Moray had a range of notable friends: James Gregory, Samuel Pepys, Thomas Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Evelyn and Gilbert Burnet.

William Fulman

He had studied the history of the Protestant Reformation in England, and at the suggestion of John Fell sent to Gilbert Burnet some corrections and additions for the first part of the latter's History.


see also