AO (Foster); ACAD (Venn) (ID: SMT573H); ODNB (Article: 25811); Lori Anne Ferrell, 'Sermons', in The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England, ed. by Andy Kesson and Emma Smith (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 193-201; Hannah Yip.
AO (Foster); ACAD (Venn) (ID: SMT573H); ODNB (Article: 25811)
The exact birth date of Henry Smith is unknown. He was the eldest son of Erasmus Smith of Somerby and Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire. Initially, Smith was admitted fellow-commoner at Queen's College, Cambridge on 17 July 1573. However, he matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford at the age of fifteen on 15 March 1575, graduating B.A. on 16 February 1578. He was awarded the degree of M.A. from St John's College, Oxford on 3 May 1583. From 1587 until 1589/90, he was lecturer of St Clement Danes, London. Smith was buried at Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire on 4 July 1591. Known as the 'Silver-Tongued Preacher' or 'Silver-Tongued Smith', he published numerous sermons, which were reprinted in multiple posthumous editions. Indeed, according to Lori Anne Ferrell, he was 'Elizabethan England's best-selling preacher' (Ferrell, p. 193).