F Fotherby, Martin Born: c.1560, Grimsby Died: 11 March 1620, London Giovanni Tarantino School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Abstract Bishop of Salisbury from 1618, a former prote ´ge ´ of and chaplain to Archbishop John Whitgift and also, ironically, the grandfather of the author of the deistic Treatise of Humane Reason (1674), Fotherby’s intellectual legacy comprised a trea- tise attacking atheism, published posthumously as Atheomastix in 1622, and a collection of four sermons, which appeared in 1608. Biography Martin Fotherby (c.1560–1620), Bishop of Salisbury, was born in Grimsby, the second son of Martin Fotherby and his wife, Isabell. After studying at Cambridge and becoming a Fellow of Trinity, he took holy orders and was appointed Archdeacon of Canterbury in 1596 and Dean in 1615. He is regarded as having been a prote ´ge ´ of Elizabeth I’s last Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift. In 1592, Fotherby married Margaret, the daughter of John Winter, a prebendary of Canterbury. He was appointed chaplain to King James I and installed as Bishop of Salisbury in 1618, but seems to have made very little impres- sion on his diocese. Fotherby died in London on 11 March 1620 and was buried 2 days later in All Hallows, Lombard Street, where his brother-in- law Francis Dee was rector. Three years later, his daughter Cecily (the third of ten children, only five of which survived their father) married Henry Clifford in the same church. Their first- born son, named after his eminent forefather, was Martin Clifford (1624–1677), who later became master of Charterhouse and wrote the deistic Treatise of Humane Reason (1674) (Tarantino 2000, pp. 15–18). Impact and Legacy Fotherby’s unfinished Atheomastix: Clearing Four Truthes, Against Atheists and Infidels: 1. That, There is a God. 2. That, There is but one God. 3. That, Jehovah, our God, is that one God. 4. That, The Holy Scripture is the Word of that God, was published posthumously in 1622. In this treatise, packed with erudite references, first and foremost to classical philosophy, the bishop declared himself to be persuaded of the universal assent to the existence of God. Although Fotherby noted that “this is the worst kinde of Atheisme of all other, when as Atheisme is # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 M. Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_419-1