HUGH

See also:

• HUGH CURWEN (d. 1568)
• CURWEN, JOHN (1816-188o)

CURWEN (d. 1568)  , English ecclesiastic and statesman, was a native of Westmorland, and was educated at Cambridge, afterwards taking orders in the church . In May 1533 he ex-pressed approval of Henry VIII.'s marriage with Anne Boleyn in a sermon preached before the king . In 1541 he became dean of Hereford, and in 1555 Queen Mary nominated him to the archbishopric of Dublin, and in the same year he was appointed lord chancellor of Ireland . He acted as one of the lords justices during the absence from Ireland of the lord deputy, the earl of Sussex, in 1557 . On the accession of Elizabeth, Curwen at once accommodated himself to the new conditions by declaring himself a Protestant, and was continued in the office of lord chancellor . He was accused by the archbishop of Armagh of serious moral delinquency, and his recall was demanded both by the primate and the bishop of Meath . In 1567 Curwen resigned the see of Dublin and the office of lord chancellor, and was appointed bishop of Oxford . He died on the 1st of November 1568 . See John Strype, Life and Acts of Archbishop Parker (3 vols., Oxford, 1824), and Memorials of Thomas Cranmer (2 vols., Oxford, 184o) ; John D'Alton . Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin, 1838) .