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 and Theodore Beza's 'Judgment,' which had been published in an English translation in 1580. Bridges's ponderous volume was immediately answered in the three tracts, 'A Defence of the Godlie Ministers against the Slaunders of D. B.,' 1587; 'A Defence of the Ecclesiastical Discipline ordayned of God. … Against a Replie of Maister Bridges,' 1588; 'A Dialogue, wherein is … laide open the Tyrannicall Dealing of L. Bishopps … (according to D. B., his "Judgement"),' 1588 (?). The chief interest attaching to Bridges's book lies in the fact that it was the immediate cause of the great Martin Mar-Prelate controversy. About a year after the publication of Bridges's 'Defence' there was issued the earliest of the Mar-Prelate tracts, with the title of 'Oh read ouer D. John Bridges, for it is a worthy worke,' an introductory epistle to a promised 'Epitome of the fyrste Booke of that right worshipfull volume, written against the Puritanes in the defence of the noble cleargie by as worshipful a prieste, Iohn Bridges, presbyter, an elder, Doctor of Diuillitie, and Deane of Sarum.' Scathing criticisms are here made on Bridges's literary incapacity: 'A man might almost run himselfe out of breath before he could come to a full point in many places in your booke.' The satirists state doubtfully that he was the author of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' usually attributed to Bishop Still (see Brit. Mus. MS. Addit. 24487, if. 33-7), and add that he had published 'a sheet in rime of all the names attributed to the Lorde in the Bible.' In February 1588-9 the promised epitome of Bridges's first book duly appeared, as the second Martin Mar-Prelate tract. Four bishops who were specially attacked here replied in an 'Admonition,' drawn up by Thomas Cooper, bishop of Winchester; but Bridges does not seem to have been connected with the later development of the controversy. Bridges took part in the Hampton Court conference of 1603, and on 12 Feb. 1603-4 was consecrated bishop of Oxford at Lambeth by Whitgift. He attended the king on his visit to Oxford in 1605, when he was created M. A., and took part in the funeral of Henry, prince of Wales, in 1612. Bridges died at a great age in 1618. Unlike his predecessors in the see of Oxford, he lived in his diocese—at March Baldon (, Diocese of Oxford, p. 121). His last published work was 'Sacrosanctum Novum Testamentum ... in hexametros versus … translatum,' 1604.

A son, William, proceeded B.D. of New College, Oxford, on 9 July 1612, and was archdeacon of Oxford from 1614 till his death in 1626 (, Fasti, Bliss, i. 348).

 BRIDGES, JOHN (1666–1724), topographer, was born in 1666 at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire, where his father then resided. His grandfather was Colonel John Bridges of Alcester, Warwickshire, whose eldest son of the same name purchased the manor of Barton Seagrave about 1665, and employed himself for many years in the careful improvement of the estate by planting it and introducing such discoveries in agriculture as were then recent, particularly the cultivation of sainfoin. His mother was Elizabeth, sister of Sir William Trumball, secretary of state. He was bred to the law, became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, was appointed solicitor to the customs in 1695, a commissioner in 1711[-2], and cashier of excise in 1715. He was also a governor of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals. In 1718 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and in the following year he began the formation of his voluminous manuscript collections for the history of his native county. He personally made a circuit of the county, and employed several persons to make drawings, collect information, and transcribe monuments and records. In this manner he expended several thousand pounds. It was his intention to make another personal survey of the county, but before he could carry this design into effect he was attacked by illness, and died at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn on 16 March 1723-4.

Bridges's manuscripts fill thirty folio volumes, besides five quarto volumes of descriptions of churches collected for him and four similar volumes in his own handwriting. These are now to be found, paged and indexed, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Left by Bridges as an heirloom to his family, they were placed by his brother William, secretary of the stamp office, in the hands of Gibbons, a stationer and law-bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate, who circulated proposals for their publication by subscription, and engaged Dr. Samuel Jebb, a learned physician of Stratford in Essex, to edit them. Before many numbers had appeared Gibbons became bankrupt, and the manuscripts remaining in the hands of the editor, who had received no compensation for his labours, were at length secured by Mr. William Cartwright, M.P., of Aynho, for his native county,