David Whitehead (priest)

Born about 1492, he was a native of Hampshire; his contemporary Hugh Whitehead (died 1551), with whom David Whitehead has sometimes been confused, was from the County Durham area. David Whitehead is said to have been educated at Brasenose College, Oxford or All Souls College, Oxford, but his name does not appear in the registers. He was tutor to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, who died in 1551. During the winter of 1549–50 Whitehead, Thomas Lever and Roger Hutchinson endeavoured to convert Joan Bocher from her heresies. In 1552 Thomas Cranmer described him as "Mr. Whitehead of Hadley"; and on 25 August suggested him to Cecil as a candidate for the vacant Archbishop of Armagh. Whitehead, however, refused the appointment, and Hugh Goodacre became archbishop. ==In exile==

Soon after Queen Mary's accession Whitehead left for the continent; he was one of the 175 who sailed with Jan Łaski from Gravesend on 17 September 1553. Whitehead was in the smaller vessel which reached Copenhagen on 3 November; there the exiles were taken for Anabaptists, and soon expelled by order of the king on their refusing to subscribe to the Lutheran confession. They then made their way to Rostock, where Whitehead pleaded their cause before the magistrates, whose Lutheran requirements they failed to satisfy, and they were compelled to leave in January. A similar fate befell them at Wismar, Lübeck, and Hamburg, but they found a refuge at Emden in March 1554. and signing a letter to Heinrich Bullinger on 27 September 1557. ==Under Elizabeth==

On Elizabeth I's accession Whitehead returned to England, preaching before the queen on 15 February 1559, taking part in the Westminster disputation with the Roman Catholic bishops on 3 April, and serving as a visitor of Oxford University, and on the commission for revising the liturgy. He is said by biographers to have had the first refusal of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and he also declined the Mastership of the Savoy. On 17 September 1561 he wrote to Cecil acknowledging his obligations to him, but refusing the living he offered. Richard Hilles, however, in announcing Whitehead's death in June 1571, said that Whitehead had lived about seven years a widower, but married a young widow when about eighty. ==Works==

Whitehead's writings, with the exception of discourses printed in William Whittingham's Brieff Discours of Troubles at Frankfort (1575), have not been traced. This story passed from Robert Barnes in Oxford to Thomas Allen; and from Allen to Brian Twyne. In Anthony Wood a version of this story has "Friar Whitehead" the source for Billingsley's work. There is also a tradition that Whitehead was earlier in life an Augustinian friar. ==References==