DOLBEN, David (1580/1-1633)

The Dolbens, of English origin, were granted lands at Segrwyd, in Denbighshire, by Henry VII for services against the Cornish rebels at Blackheath in 1497. The estate was relatively modest, and with 15 children to provide for, the bishop’s father left Dolben only £10 when he died in 1590. Dolben entered St John’s College, Cambridge in 1602 as a sizar, where he was a pupil of the Welshman Owen Gwyn; he left after obtaining his MA in 1609, and at his ordination as priest by George Abbot^*, bishop of London (later archbishop of Canterbury) in December 1610 he was described as curate of ‘Baythorpe, Hertfordshire’ – perhaps Bayford parish, which lay within the jurisdiction of Lincoln diocese. He subsequently became tutor to a London merchant, perhaps a foreigner, but he found the post unsatisfactory, and in 1611-12 he pleaded unsuccessfully with Gwyn to secure him a more ‘scholar-like fashion of living’.17 Griffith, 160; PROB 11/76, f. 118; CCEd; St John’s Coll., Camb. D94.338; W.P. Griffith, Learning, Law and Religion, 230.

It is unclear how Dolben acquired the vicarage of Hackney in 1619: nominated by the attorney Thomas Hughes (another London Welshman), he presumably paid for the privilege, although his means must have been limited. He may by then have become chaplain to John Villiers^*, Viscount Purbeck, the mentally ill brother of the favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, although this connection can only be dated from 1625, when he was granted a dispensation to hold the rectory of Essendon, Hertfordshire in commendam with Hackney. In 1626 George Abbot, by now archbishop of Canterbury, had Dolben collated to a prebend at St Asaph Cathedral, while the Cambridge don and diplomat Sir William Boswell^‡ arranged with Owen Gwyn for him to proceed to his doctorate, which was awarded in the following year.18 CCEd; C58/28; Le Neve, Fasti (1854), i. 85-6; St John’s Coll., Camb. D94.30.

Consecrated as bishop of Bangor in March 1632, Dolben had no known rivals for the poorest bishopric in the Church of England, which, even held in commendam with the archdeaconry of Anglesey, was worth under £200 p.a. He acknowledged the ‘many great and real favours’ of the master of the Rolls, Sir Julius Caesar^‡, in securing this post, but Archbishop Abbot, then in semi-retirement, may also have backed him. He was allowed to retain his prebend at St Asaph, and acquired a Denbighshire living, but the price of his appointment was Hackney, where he was replaced by Gilbert Sheldon^† (later archbishop of Canterbury) in May 1633.19 Le Neve, Fasti (1854), i. 106; Add. 34324, f. 304; CCEd. He probably made little financial gain from his move to Bangor; in his will of 22 Nov. 1632 he complained of the ‘poor estate which God hath allotted me’. However, he left £20 to each of his siblings and their descendants, another £20 to purchase books for the library at his old college, and 20 marks to the library of Jesus College, Oxford. In May 1633, already ‘sickly’, he arranged with his dean, Edward Griffith, to leave his Welsh Bible to his cathedral, and £20 for paving the cathedral. He died at his episcopal residence at Holborn, London on 27 Nov. 1633, having never had the opportunity to sit in Parliament. He was buried two days later in Hackney church, where a monument was subsequently erected. In the absence of any direct heirs, his will was proved by his brother William and two nephews on 7 Mar. 1634. Dean Griffith succeeded him at Bangor, while in 1683 a distant kinsman, John Dolben^†, became archbishop of York.20 PROB 11/165, ff. 204v-5v; 11/171, ff. 177-8; D. Lysons, Environs of London, ii. 491; Oxford DNB, xvi. 459; DWB.