Education
Eaton, born in Kent in or about 1575, was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he became the first recipient of the newly founded Blount exhibition in 1590.
Eaton, born in Kent in or about 1575, was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he became the first recipient of the newly founded Blount exhibition in 1590.
He proceeded Bachelor of Arts 16 February 1595, and Master of Arts 7 July 1603. After serving several curacies, including that of Saint Catherine, Coleman Street, London, he was presented about 1604 to the vicarage of Wickham Market, Suffolk, where he continued for fifteen years, ‘being accounted by all the neighbouring ministers a grand Antinomian, if not one of the founders of the sect so called’. Eaton, though undoubtedly much of a fanatic, made an excellent vicar.
‘in a few years the parish was generally reformed: insomuch that most children of twelve years old were able to give a good account of their knowledge in the grounds of religion’.
At length his heterodox preaching gave offence to his diocesan, and he was deprived of his living 29 April 1619, as being ‘an incorrigible divulger of errors and false opinions’. He persisted, however, in promulgating his doctrine, for which, as he says, he suffered ‘much hurry’ and ‘divers imprisonments’.
He bore his persecution with equanimity. The time of his death is uncertain.
Strype, in citing portions of an undated letter from John Echard, vicar of Darsham, Suffolk, in 1616, in which mention is made of Eaton and the court of high commission, absurdly refers it to 1575.