John Scory

John Scory (died 1585) was an English Dominican friar who later became a bishop in the Church of England.

He was Bishop of Rochester from 1551 to 1552, and then translated to Bishop of Chichester from 1552 to 1553. He was deprived of this position on Queen Mary's accession, but returned to the Anglican episcopate under Elizabeth's reign as Bishop of Hereford from 1559 to 1585.

He participated in the Westminster Disputation of 1559.

Life He was a Norfolk man, who became a friar in the Dominicans' house at Cambridge about 1530, and was one of those who signed the surrender on its suppression in 1538. He proceeded B.D. in 1539. In 1541 he was one of the six preachers whom Thomas Cranmer appointed at Canterbury Cathedral. He was also one of Cranmer's chaplains.

Scory was accused for a sermon preached on Ascension day 1541, but nothing seems to have resulted. King Edward notes that when Joan Bocher was executed (2 May 1550) for heresy, Scory preached, and she reviled him, saying that he lied like a rogue and ought to read the Bible. He was about this time made examining chaplain to Nicholas Ridley, the bishop of London. In Lent 1551 he called attention to the want of ecclesiastical discipline, and to the covetousness of the rich, particularly in the matter of enclosures. He was appointed to the bishopric of Rochester on 26 April 1551, and was a commissioner appointed to revise the ecclesiastical laws (February 1551–2). On 23 May 1552 he was translated to Chichester. He instituted a thorough review of the lands of the bishopric which was carried out 1577–80 by the young Swithun Butterfield.

In dogma Scory was orthodox, and signed the articles of 1562, and the canons of 1571. He died at Whitbourne, Herefordshire on 26 June 1585. He left money to charitable uses.

Works Epistle to the Faytheful in Pryson in England, written during his exile at Emden. Certein Works of the blessed Cipriane the Martyr, London, 1556. Two Books of the noble doctor and B. S. Augustine, translated into English, 8vo, between 1550 and 1560.

A survey of the lands belonging to the see of Hereford was made in 1577–8 by Swithun Butterfield under Scory's direction, and has been preserved.

Family Scory's wife Elizabeth survived till 8 March 1592. A son Sylvanus Scory was prebendary of Hereford 1565–9, fought in the Low Countries, was M.P. for Newtown, Hampshire in 1597, and, dying in 1617, was buried in St Leonard's, Shoreditch. He left one son, Sylvanus, who died a prisoner in Wood Street counter in 1641, and another son, Edmund, knighted on 4 July 1618.