Background
Hugh Broughton was born in 1549 at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire.
Hugh Broughton was born in 1549 at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire.
Hugh Broughton was educated by Bernard Gilpin at Houghton-le-Spring and at Cambridge, where he became fellow of St John's and then of Christ's, and took orders. Here he laid the foundation of the Hebrew scholarship for which he was afterwards so distinguished.
In 1588 appeared Hugh Broughton's first work, A Concent of Scripture, dedicated to the queen. John Speed, the historian, saw the book through the press. The Concent was attacked in public prelections by John Rainolds at Oxford, and Edward Lively at Cambridge.
He began weekly lectures in his own defence to an audience of between 80 and 100 scholars, using the Concent as a text-book. The privy council allowed him to deliver his lectures (as Chevallier had done before) at the east end of St Paul's Cathedral, until some of the bishops complained of his audiences as conventicles. He then moved his lecture to a room in Cheapside, and then to Mark Lane, and elsewhere. Insecurity based on fear of the high commission made him anxious to leave the country.
In 1589 he went to Germany, where he frequently engaged in discussions both with Romanists and with the learned Jews whom he met at Frankfort and elsewhere.
In 1591 he returned to England, but his Puritan leanings incurred the hostility of Whitgift.
In 1599 he published his "Explication" of the article " He descended into hell, " in which he maintained that Hades means simply the abode of departed spirits, not the place of torment.
On the accession of James he returned to England; but not being engaged to co-operate in the new translation of the Bible (though he had for some years planned a similar work), he retired to Middleburg in Holland, where he preached to the English congregation.
Some of his works were collected and published in a large folio volume in 1662, with a sketch of his life by John Lightfoot, but many of his theological MSS.
remain still unedited in the British Museum.
Broughton on his travels took part in disputations against Catholics, and engaged in religious discussion with several rabbis.
Hugh Broughton was married to a niece of his pupil, Alexander Top, named Lingen.