Born: Henry Foulis was born in 1635 at Ingleby Greenhow. He was the second son of Sir Henry Foulis, second baronet of Ingleby and Mary Layton, daughter of Sir Thomas Layton of Sexhow.
Educated: He graduated from Queen’s College, Oxford in 1657 and became a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. There he met Nathaniel Crewe who later became Bishop of Durham.
Married: Henry Foulis never married.
Family: He had no children.
Home: His early years were spent partly at Ingleby and partly in Scotland. He seems to have lived most of his later life in Oxford.
Known for: Despite growing up in a family with Presbyterian and Parliamentarian leanings, Henry Foulis became a Royalist supporter and an Anglican. He is known for controversial writings. In 1662 he wrote “The History of the Wicked Plots and Conspiracies of our Pretended Saints”. In 1671 he wrote “The history of the Romish treasons and usurpations”. The first book attacked Presbyterians; the second attacked Papists. The antiquary Anthony Wood, who knew Henry Foulis, said that his first book was widely read in country churches.
Died: Henry Foulis died on 24th December 1669, while still in his early thirties, and was buried at St. Michael’s Church in Oxford.
Further Information: “The History and Antiquities of Cleveland” John W. Ord (1846)
Dictionary of National Biography