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Abbot in the Valteline, which appears in the seventh edition of Foxe’s ‘Acts and Monuments,’ 1631–2, and the ‘Judgment on Bowing at the Name of Jesus,’ published at Hamburg in 1632. He is also said to have shared with Sir Henry Savile the expense of republishing in 1618 Bradwardine’s ‘Cause of God against the Pelagians.’ Abbot drew up biographical accounts (1) of his connection with the Essex divorce case, printed in the ‘State Trials’ (ii. 805–62); (2) of his accident in Bramshill Park, printed, with other documents on the subject, in ‘Reliquiæ Spelmanniæ’ and in the ‘State Trials’ (ii. 1165–9); these papers, although written in the third person, may be confidently attributed to his pen (copies of them in manuscript are among the Tanner MSS. at Oxford); and (3) of his sequestration, printed in Rushworth’s ‘Historical Collections’ (i. 434 et seq.), and reprinted by Mr. Arber (1882) in his ‘English Garner,’ iv. 535–76. Several of his letters remain in manuscript at the Bodleian among the Tanner MSS.

Abbot’s portrait was several times painted, and engravings after Vandergucht and Houbraken are often met with. A portrait was engraved in 1616 by Simon Pass, in oval, with a view of Lambeth in the background, and eight Latin lines beneath (, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 1, ii. 1). A half-length portrait, of uncertain authorship, is in the chapel of Abbot’s hospital at Guildford. There is a gloominess of expression in these pictures which, while confirming the moroseness of disposition usually ascribed to him, is yet tempered, on closer examination, by much natural kindliness.



ABBOT, GEORGE (1603–1648), religious writer, has been persistently mistaken for other George Abbots. He is invariably described as a clergyman, which he never was, and as son of Sir Maurice (or Morris) Abbot, who had indeed a son George, but not this George. Similarly, in the bibliographical authorities, he is erroneously designated nephew of George (Abbot), archbishop of Canterbury. He was of a different family from both Sir Maurice Abbot and the archbishop. This George Abbot was son or grandson—it is not clear which—of Sir Thomas Abbot, knight, of Easington, East Yorkshire, and was born there in 1603–4, his mother (or grandmother) being of the ancient house of Pickering.

Of his early, as of his later education, nothing has been transmitted. Whilst his writings evidence ripe and varied scholarship and culture on somewhat out-of-the-way lines, e.g. Hebrew and patristic—there is no record of academic training.

He married a daughter of the once famous Colonel Purefoy of Caldecote, Warwickshire: and as the inscription on his tomb—still extant there—tells us, he bravely held the manorhouse against the Princes Rupert and Maurice during the great civil war.

As a layman and nevertheless a theologian and scholar of original capacity and remarkable attainments, he holds a unique place in the literature of the period. His ‘Whole Book of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to understand’ (1640, 4to), is in striking contrast with the prolixity of contemporary commentators and expositors. His ‘Vindiciæ Sabbathi’ (1641) had a deep and permanent influence in the long Sabbatarian controversy. His ‘Brief Notes upon the whole Book of Psalms’ (1651, 4to), as its date shows, was posthumous. He died 2 Feb. 1648. [MS. collections for History of the Abbots, by J. T. Abbot, Esq., F.S.A., of Darlington;