| Clement Barksdale | |
| Birth Date: | November 1609 |
| Birth Place: | Winchcombe, Gloucestershire |
| Death Date: | January 1687 |
Clement Barksdale (November 1609 – January 1687) was a prolific English religious author, polymath and Anglican priest. He lost his London parish in the English Civil War, but gained Gloucestershire livings at the Restoration and taught at a private school.
Clement Barksdale was born at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire in November 1609.
After earlier education at John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon, (now Abingdon School),[1] he entered Merton College, Oxford as "a servitor" in Lent term 1625, but moved shortly to Gloucester Hall (afterwards Worcester College, Oxford), where he took his degrees in arts. He entered holy orders, and in 1637 acted as chaplain of Lincoln College. In the same year he moved to Hereford, where he became master of Hereford Cathedral School, vicar-choral, and soon after, Vicar of All Hallows there. When Hereford garrison was taken by the parliamentary army in 1646, he retreated to Sudeley Castle to shelter with the Chandos family, to which he acted as chaplain in the opening years of the civil war.
Later he found refuge at Hawling, Gloucestershire, in the Cotswold district, where he taught at a private school with success and had several pupils of rank. There he composed his Nympha Libethris, or the Cotswold Muse, presenting some extempore Verses to the Imitation of yong Scholars (1651). At the Restoration he was presented to the livings of Naunton near Hawling, and of Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire, which he retained until his death in January 1687 in his 79th year, when (says Anthony à Wood) he left behind him "the character of a frequent and edifying preacher and a good neighbour".
His major works are:
He made also translations of books and tractates by Cyprian, Grotius, Anna Maria van Schurman, and others.