The son of John Fairclough, the elder brother of Daniel Featley, he was born in
Northamptonshire in or about 1605. He was admitted either clerk or chorister at
All Souls' College, Oxford, and took his B.A. degree on 25 February 1624. After being ordained he went to
Saint Kitts, the first preacher in the colony, in 1626. During 1635 and 1636 he was curate to his uncle at
Lambeth, and probably at
Acton. In 1639 he was made chaplain to Charles I, in the
First Bishops' War. When the
First English Civil War was turning adverse for the royalists, he was persuaded by his uncle to return to Saint Kitts, for which he sailed with his wife, children, and servants from
Tilbury on 24 June 1643. In 1646 Featley was in
Flushing, Netherlands. After the
Restoration he was appointed on 29 June 1660 chaplain extraordinary to the king, who presented him on 13 August to the precentorship of Lincoln, and in September following to a prebend in
Lincoln Cathedral. In 1661 he was rector of
Langar, Nottinghamshire; he was later instituted to the vicarage of
Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire. On 7 June 1661 he was created by royal mandamus D.D. at Oxford. Featley died at Lincoln in 1666, and was buried in a chapel in the Lincoln Cathedral. ==Works==