Bishop John Gauden - Worcester Cathedral

Bust of Bishop John Gaugen (d1662), Worcester Cathedral. John Gaugen was made Bishop of Worcester in May 1662 but died in September 1662 of "stone and strangury" a complication of kidney stones.

In 1638 he was chaplain to the earl of Warwick Robert Rich, and by 1640 he had married the sister of Sir Francis Russell (who he had taught ad Wadham college), and been nominated as the vicar of Chippenham by Francis too.

When the civil war broke out the Russells and the earl of Warwick supported the Parliamentarians. Though Gauden was somewhat ambivalent and wrote a virulent tract attacking Cromwell for the execution of Charles I, entitled "Cromwell's Bloody Slaughter-House", though the tract was not published until after Cromwell's death. However, much of the 1640s and 1650s he played the middle ground looking for advancement from which ever side was in the ascendency. After the restoration in 1660 he claimed to have written the spiritual autobiography of Charles I "Eikon Basilike" though there is some disagreement as to whether this is entirely accurate.