FULLER, THOMAS (16o8-1661), English divine and his torian, eldest son of Thomas Fuller, rector of Aldwincle St. Peter's, Northamptonshire, was christened on June 19, 1608. At 13 he was sent to Queen's college, Cambridge, graduating M.A. in 1628. In that year he removed to Sidney Sussex college, and in 163o was presented by Corpus Christi college to the curacy of St. Benet's, Cambridge. In June of the same year his uncle, John Davenant, bishop of Salisbury, gave him a prebend in Salis bury, where his father, who died in the following year, held a canonry. The rectory of Broadwindsor, Dorsetshire, then in the diocese of Bristol, was his next preferment At Broadwindsor he compiled The Historie of the Holy Warre (1639), a history of the crusades, and The Holy State and the Prophane State (1642). This popular work describes the holy state as existing in the family and in public life, gives rules of conduct, model "characters" for the various professions and pro fane biographies. He was in 1640 elected proctor for Bristol in the convocation of Canterbury, which assembled with the Short Parliament. His first published volume of sermons appeared in 164o under the title of Joseph's party-coloured Coat, which con tains many of his conceits. He was not formally dispossesed of his living and prebend on the triumph of the Presbyterian party, but he relinquished both preferments, to become lecturer at the chapel of St. Mary Savoy. Some of the best discourses of the witty preacher were delivered at the Savoy to audiences which extended into the chapel-yard. In one he set forth the hindrances to peace, and urged the signing of petitions in the cause of peace to the king at Oxford, and to the parliament. Fuller was one of a party entrusted to carry the Westminster petition to the king at Oxford. The deputation was turned back (Jan. 4, 1643) at Uxbridge, and the members of the party spent a brief period in gaol. But the petition reached the king by other means, and was published with his reply. In Aug. 1643 Fuller joined the king at Oxford.
The spirit of Fuller's preaching, always characterized by calm ness and moderation, gave offence to the high royalists, who charged him with lukevvarmness in their cause. To silence unjust censures he became chaplain to the regiment of Sir Ralph Hopton. For the first five years of the war, he had "little list or leisure to write, fearing to be made a history, and shifting daily for my safety. All that time I could not live to study, who did only study to live." After the defeat of Hopton at Cheriton Down, Fuller retreated to Basing House. He took an active part in its defence. In his marches with his regiment round about Oxford and in the west, he collected details from churches, old buildings, and the conversation of ancient gossips, for his Church-History and Worthies of England. He compiled in 1645, a small volume of prayers and meditations—the Good Thoughts in Bad Times— printed at Exeter, where he remained until the surrender of the city to the parliament in the summer of 1647. Articles of Surrender Fuller made his composition with the Government at London.
In 1647 Fuller began to preach at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and elsewhere in the capacity of lecturer. At Chelsea he covertly preached a sermon on the death of Charles I., but he did not break with his Roundhead patrons. James Hay, and earl of Carlisle, made him his chaplain, and presented him in 1648 or 1649 to the curacy of Waltham Abbey.
His possession of the living was in jeopardy on the appointment of Cromwell's "Tryers" ; but Fuller evaded their inquisitorial questions by his ready wit. He was not disturbed at Waltham in 1655, when the Protector's edict prohibited the adherents of the late king from preaching. Lionel, 3rd earl of Middlesex, who lived at Copt Hall, near Waltham, gave him what remained of the books of the lord treasurer his father; and through the good offices of the marchioness of Hertford, part of his own pillaged library was restored to him. Fuller, thus provided with books, wrote his descriptive geography of the Holy Land, called A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (165o), and his Church-History of Britain (1655), from the birth of Jesus Christ until the year 1648. With the Church-History was printed The History of the University of Cambridge since the Conquest and The History of Waltham Abbey. These works were furthered by his connection with Sion college, London, where he had a chamber, as well for the convenience of the press as of his city lectureships. His last and best patron was George Berkeley, 1st Earl Berkeley (1628 98), of Cranford house, Middlesex, whose chaplain he was, and who gave him Cranford rectory (1658). His later works are: An Alarum to the Counties of England and Wales (166o) ; Mixt Contemplations in Better Times (166o) ; and A Panegyrick to His Majesty on his Happy Return (166o). He resumed his lec tures at the Savoy, where Samuel Pepys heard him preach, and became chaplain in extraordinary to Charles II. In the summer of 1661 he visited the west in connection with the business of his prebend, which had been restored to him. On Sunday, Aug. 12, while preaching at the Savoy, he was seized with typhus fever, and died at his new lodgings in Covent Garden on Aug. 16. He was buried in Cranford church. Fuller was twice married; his second wife, Mary Roper, being a sister of Viscount Baltinglass.
Fuller's writings were the product of a highly original mind. He had a fertile imagination and a happy faculty of illustration. Antithetic and axiomatic sentences abound in his pages, embody ing literally the wisdom of the many in the wit of one. He was "quaint," and something more. "Wit," said Coleridge, in a well-known eulogy, "was the stuff and substance of Fuller's intellect. It was the element, the earthen base, the material which he worked in ; and this very circumstance has defrauded him of his due praise for the practical wisdom of the thoughts, for the beauty and variety of the truths, into which he shaped the stuff. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, great man of an age that boasted a galaxy of great men" (Literary Remains, vol. ii. [1836], pp. 389-390). This opinion was formed after reading The Church History and the Worthies of England. Charles Lamb had a profound admira tion for Fuller and made selections from his works. , There is an account of the life and writings of Fuller by William Oldys in the Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. (1750), based on Fuller's own works and the anonymous Life of . . . Dr. Thomas Fuller (1661; reprinted in a volume of selections by A. L. J. Gosset, 1893) . The completest account of him is The Life of Thomas Fuller, with Notices of his Books, his Kinsmen and his Friends (1874) , by J. E. Bailey, who gives a detailed bibliography (pp. 713-762) of his works. The Worthies of England was reprinted by John Nichols (181 1) and by P. A. Nuttall (1840) . His Collected Sermons were edited by J. E. Bailey and W. E. A. Axon in 1891. Fuller's quaint wit lends itself to selection, and there are several modern volumes of extracts from his works.