Alexander Leighton
Alexander Leighton was a Puritan who held dual roles as a physician and clergyman in 17th-century England. He is best known for his work "An Appeal to the Parliament: Or, Sions Plea Against the Prelacie," published in 1628, where he argued for the removal of bishops from the Church of England. Leighton contended that bishops were detrimental to Christianity and the commonwealth, claiming they infringed upon divine and civil rights. His outspoken views led to his arrest in 1630, where he was convicted of sedition by the Star Chamber Court and subjected to severe physical punishments, including mutilation. Following his release after eleven years in prison, Leighton continued to advocate against the episcopal system through additional writings, including "A Decade of Grievances . . . Against the Bishops" and "An Epitome or Brief Discoverie." The harshness of his sentencing and the resulting public response significantly contributed to the growing discontent with the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the Star Chamber. Leighton's ideas also foreshadowed those of contemporaries like John Milton, marking him as a significant figure in the religious and political landscape of England during his time.
Subject Terms
Alexander Leighton
Identification: English Puritan divine and physician
Significance: A harsh critic of English bishops, Leighton was punished with bodily mutilation and imprisonment
A Puritan trained as both a physician and a clergyman, Leighton argued for the removal of the bishops from the Church of England in An Appeal to the Parliament: Or, Sions Plea Against the Prelacie (1628). Arguing that “the Lord Bishops, and their appurtenances are manifestlie proved, both by divine and humane Lawes, to be intruders upon the Priviledges of Christ, of the King, and of the Common-weal,” Leighton denounced the bishops for their irrelevance and anti-Christian administration. They should, he argued, “have no place in God’s house.”
In 1630 Leighton was seized under a warrant from the Court of High Commission, charged with encouraging anarchy. He was tried and convicted by the Star Chamber court and sentenced to be whipped, have an ear cut off, his nose slit, and his face branded “SS,” for “sower of sedition.” He escaped from prison briefly but suffered the mutilation prescribed by his sentence in November, 1630. He then spent eleven years in jail before being released at the beginning of the English Puritan Revolution.
The ferocity of Leighton’s punishment for publishing Sions Plea—more than the book’s actual arguments—contributed to the erosion of popular support for the bishops and the discrediting of the Star Chamber. Leighton himself continued his crusade against the bishops in two further books, A Decade of Grievances . . . Against the Bishops (1641) and An Epitome or Brief Discoverie (1646). Early in the reign of King Charles I, Leighton anticipated the arguments of John Milton in his antiepiscopal tracts of the 1640’s.