TAYLOR, JEREMY (1613-1667), English divine and author, was baptized at Cambridge on Aug. 15, 1613. His father, Nathaniel, a barber, was a man of some education, for Jeremy was "solely grounded in grammar and mathematics" by him be fore he became a pupil of Thomas Lovering, at the newly founded Perse grammar school. Lovering is first mentioned as master in 1619, so that Taylor probably spent seven years at the school before he was entered at Gonville and Caius College as a sizar in 1626. He was elected a Perse scholar in 1628, and fellow of his college in 1633. He took holy orders in 1633,and, took the place of Thomas Risden for a short time as lecturer in St. Paul's. Arch bishop Laud sent for Taylor to preach before him at Lambeth, and took the young man under his special protection. Taylor retained his fellowship at Cambridge until 1636, for Laud desired that his "mighty parts should be afforded better opportunities of study and improvement than a course of constant preaching would allow of," but he seems to have spent much of his time in London. In November 1635 he had been nominated by Laud to a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford, where, says Wood (Aiken. Oxon., Ed. Bliss, iii. 781), love and admiration still waited on him. He seems, however, to have spent little time there. He became chaplain to his patron the archbishop, and chaplain in ordinary to Charles I. After two years in Oxford, he was pre sented, in March 1638, by Juxon, bishop of London, to the rec tory of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. In 1642 he was appointed to preach in St. Mary's on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, and apparently used the occasion to clear himself of a sus picion, which, however, haunted him through life, of a secret leaning to the Roman Catholic communion. This suspicion may have arisen from his intimacy with Christopher Davenport, bet ter known as Francis a Sancta Clara. the learned Franciscan chaplain of Queen Henrietta; but was probably strengthened by his known connection with Laud, as well as by his ascetic habits.
More serious consequences followed his attachment to the Royalist cause. The author of The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy or Episcopacy Asserted against the Aerians and Acephali New and Old (1642) could scarcely hope to retain his parish, which was not, however, sequestrated until 1644. Taylor probably accompanied the king to Oxford. In 1643 he was presented to the rectory of Overstone, Northamptonshire, by Charles I. There he would be in close connection with his friend and patron Spen cer Compton, and earl of Northampton.
Taylor seems to have been in London during the last weeks of Charles L's life, and is said to have received his watch and some jewels which had ornamented the ebony case in which he kept his Bible. He had been captured while besieging Cardigan castle on Feb. 4, 1645. He found refuge, as private chaplain, with Richard Vaughan, and earl of Carbery (160o-1686 ), whose hospitable mansion, Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, is immortal ized in the title of Taylor's great manual of devotion, and whose first wife was a constant friend of Taylor. The second Lady Carbery was the original of the "Lady" in Milton's Comus. Mrs. Taylor had died early in 1651. His second wife was Joanna Bridges, said on very doubtful authority to have been a natural daughter of Charles I. She owned a good estate, though probably impoverished by Parliamentarian exactions.
From time to time Jeremy Taylor appears in London in the company of his friend Evelyn, in whose diary and correspond ence his name repeatedly occurs. He was three times imprisoned: in 1654-5 for an injudicious preface to his Golden Grove; again in Chepstow castle, from May to October 1655, on what charge does not appear; and a third time in the Tower in 1657-8, on account of the indiscretion of his publisher, Richard Royston, who had adorned his "Collection of Offices" with a print repre senting Christ in the attitude of prayer.