Richard Argentine

Who is Richard Argentine?

Richard Argentine, alias Sexten, M.D, was an English physician and divine.

Argentine went to Ipswich 'in a serving-man's coat,' and afterwards was successively usher and master of the grammar school in that town, where he also practised as a physician and read a lecture in divinity. He was created M.D. by the university of Cambridge in 1541. In the reign of Edward VI he was a protestant; but in the reign of Queen Mary, having lost his wife, he took orders and made himself conspicuous by his advocacy of Catholic principles, and by persecuting the reformers. He was instituted to the rectory of St. Helen with St Clement, Ipswich, in 1556. Shortly before the death of Queen Mary he removed to London, and in the reign of Elizabeth retained his rectory by again becoming a reformer. In January 1563-4 he appears to have been living at Exeter, but the statement that he was a prebendary of Exeter and Wells is without foundation. He probably died in 1568, when his rectory at Ipswich became vacant.