Henry Greenwood, The Blessed’st Birth that ever was (1628)

The clergyman Henry Greenwood (c. 1545–1634?) is an elusive figure. Most of the information about Greenwood’s career is set out in Venn and Venn’s Alumni Cantabrigienses. Born in c. 1545 in Yorkshire, Greenwood matriculated as a pensioner from St John’s College, Cambridge, in Michaelmas term 1564, graduating B.A. in 1567/8 and proceeding M.A. in 1571. He had become a Fellow of St John’s in 1570. On 20 December 1571, at the age of twenty-six, Greenwood was ordained deacon; he was ordained priest almost a year later on 22 October 1572.

Greenwood did not become a cleric immediately following his ordination. From 1576 until 1596, he served as Master of Felsted School in Essex. From 1596 until 1605, he was instituted to the vicarage of Hatfield Peverel; other livings included Great Sampford and Little Leighs, also in Essex.

The Blessed’st Birth that ever was (1628) is a printed sermon. Originally preached on Christmas Day in 1627 at the Fleet Prison, London, the work was published in 1628. He had also published a devotional work, entitled The Prisoners Prayers, in the same year. The dedicatory epistle to The Prisoners Prayers, dated 13 November 1627, records his location as being ‘From his Majesties Prison of the Fleet’. The reason for Greenwood’s incarceration at the Fleet is not clear.

This copy contains an exquisite hand-painted miniature, the only existing likeness of Henry Greenwood. Executed in watercolour and graphite by an anonymous artist, it serves as a frontispiece to this short sermon. 
 

Further Reading

Venn, John, and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses … Part I: From the Earliest Times to 1751, Volume II (Cambridge: University Press, 1922), p. 261