Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/296

Bocking settled at Ash Bocking, Suffolk, some members of which held property at Longham, Norfolk, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (, Hundred of Launditch, pt. ii. 422-4). A John Bocking was one of Sir John Fastolf's clerks; he is repeatedly mentioned in the 'Paston Letters,' and much of his correspondence is printed there. He died in 1478, when Sir William Bocking, his brother, administered his effects (Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner. iii. 228). A Nicholas Bocking was also in Sir John Fastolf's service. Edward Bocking proceeded B.D. at Oxford on 16 June 1513 and D.D. in June 1518. He is stated to have been educated at Canterbury College, Oxford, which was afterwards absorbed in Christ Church, and (before 1513) was appointed warden there. About 1526 he had retired from Oxford to the Benedictine priory, Christ Church, Canterbury. In that year he (with a brother-monk, William Hadley) was sent by his prior, Thomas Goldwell, to Addington, Kent, to report on the alleged divine revelations of Elizabeth Barton, a maidservant of the village, who was popularly believed to be inspired by the Holy Ghost. He fulfilled his mission dishonestly. He found the girl recovering from an hysterical disorder; but he induced her—and for some years with complete success—to feign her manifestations, and to declare herself an emissary from the Virgin, sent to overthrow the Lutherans, and(subsequently) to prevent the divorce of Queen Catherine. In 1527 Bocking caused Elizabeth to be removed to the priory of St. Sepulchre's, Canterbury, and informed Archbishop Warham that 'a voice had spoken in her in one of her trances, that it was the pleasure of God that he should be her ghostly father.' About the same time he caused a collection of the nun's oracles, drawn up under his direction, to be widely circulated in manuscript. He continued in Elizabeth's service for nearly six years, and led her to follow his example of railing and jesting 'like a frantic person against the king's grace, his purposed marriage, against his acts of parliament, and against the maintenance of heresies within this realm.' A few months after Henry VIII's marriage with Anne Boleyn (28 May 1533), the nun's continued denunciations of the king's conduct led Cromwell to arrest her on a charge of treason. On 25 Sept. Bocking and her other associates shared her fate. Booking soon confessed to the imposture, and he, with six others, was hanged at Tyburn on 20 April 1534, in accordance with the terms of the act of attainder drawn up against all the nun's immediate supporters in the previous January. Cranmer, writing to Henry VIII, 13 Dec. 1533, described the powerful and baneful influence that Blocking exerted over the novices in the priory of Christ Church, Canterbury (, Letters, Parker Society, 271). Sir Richard Morison very fiercely attacks Bocking, whom he misnames Joannes, in his 'Apomaxis Calumniarum &hellip; (juibus Joannes Cocleua &hellip;  Henrici Octavi &hellip; famam impetere &hellip; studuit,' 1538, ff. 74-5. 

BOCKING, RALPH (d. 1270), Dominican, is stated to have been a native of Chichester. He was the private confessor of Richard Wych, who held the see of Chichester from 1245 till his death in 1253. Ralph lived for many years on very intimate terms with the bishop, and on the latter's canonisation, early in 1262, was requested by Isabel, countess of Arundel, and Robert de Kilwardby (chief of the Dominican order in England, and afterwards archbishop of Canterbury) to write St. Richard's life. Ralph readily performed the task, and dedicated it to the Lady Isabel. His style is declamatory; but he utilises much information derived from the bishop, and he describes much that he himself witnessed. A thirteenth-century manuscript of the life is in the British Museum (MS. Sloane, 1772, ff. 25-70). It was printed in the Bollandists' 'Acta Sanctorum,' 1675. under 3 April. A popular abridgment of Ralph's life by John Elmer, manuscripts of which are extant in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, Tib., 1), in the Bodleian (MS. Tanner, 15), and at York, is printed in Capgrave's 'Nova Legenda Angliæ.' fol. 269 b. Bale attributes to Ralph a series of sermons, but of them nothing is now known. 

BOCKMAN, R. (fl. 1750), portrait painter and mezzotint engraver, the initial of whose Christian name is given by Füssli as C. or G., was known as an artist in Amsterdam, whence he appears to have come first to England. He worked in this country in the early part of the eighteenth century. He painted several portraits of the Duke of Cumberland, and a life-size half-length of Admiral Russell, which is in the hospital at Greenwich. He copied after Kneller, and engraved portraits in mezzotint after Vandyck, Vanloo, Dahl, Worsdale, and others. He painted and engraved (1743) a picture of 'St. Dunstan holding the Devil by the nose with the tongs.' His