Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/205

 Corbet LL.B. in 1598, was elected a fellow of his college on 10 Dec. the same year, and was created LL.D. in 1605. In May 1607 he was chosen professor of law at Gresham College, London, and he occupied that chair till November 1613 (, Lives of the Gresham Professors, with the Author's MS. Notes, p. 238). On the death of Dr. John Cowell he was elected to succeed him in the mastership of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 12 Oct. 1611, being at that time chancellor of the diocese of Chichester (, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 679). On 9 May 1612 he was admitted a member of the College of Advocates at Doctors' Commons (, English Civilians, p. 71). He was vice-chancellor of Cambridge in 1613-14 (Addit. MS. 5866, f. 34). In 1625 he was appointed vicar-general and principal official to the bishop of Norwich, and the following year he resigned the mastership of Trinity Hall (, Fasti, ii. 496). He died on 28 May 1652, and was buried in the chancel of Belaugh church, Norfolk, where a monument, with a Latin inscription, was erected to his memory (, Monumenta Anglicana, Suppl. p. 10, No. 21;, Norfolk, ed. 1808, viii. 189). By his wife Elizabeth Kemp, he had one son, Samuel, and five daughters. The portrait of him which is preserved in the master's lodge at Trinity Hall was bequeathed to that society by Thomas Baker the antiquary (Addit. MS. 5807, ff. 110b, 111).

[Authorities cited above.]  CORBET, EDWARD (d. 1658), divine, born at Pontesbury in Shropshire, 'of the ancient family of the Corbets in that county,' was educated at Shrewsbury and Merton College, Oxford, of which house he was admitted a probationer fellow in 1624. Meanwhile he had taken his B.A. degree on 4 Dec. 1622, and became proctor on 4 April 1638. At Merton he distinguished himself by his resistance to the attempted innovations of Laud, and subsequently gave evidence at the archbishop's trial. 'Being always puritannically affected,' he was chosen one of the assembly of divines, and a preacher before the Long parliament. In the latter capacity he published: 'God's Providence: a sermon [on 1 Cor. i. 27] preached before the Hon. House of Commons, at their late solemne fast, 28 Dec. 1642,' 4to, London, 1642 [O.S.] For this discourse he received the thanks of the house, and by an ordinance dated 17 May 1643 was instituted to the rectory of Chartham, Kent. He held this living until 1646, when he returned to Oxford as one of the seven ministers appointed by the parliament to preach the loyal scholars into obedience, which office he found little to his liking. He was also elected one of the visitors of the university, 'yet seldom or never sat among them.' On 20 Jan. 1647-8 he was installed public orator and canon of the second stall in Christ Church, in room of Dr. Henry Hammond, who had been ejected by the visitors, but being, as Wood observes, 'a person of conscience and honesty,' he resigned both places in the following August. The same year he proceeded D.D. on 12 April. At length in the beginning of 1649 he was presented, on the death of Dr. Thomas Soame, to the valuable rectory of Great Hasely, near Oxford. Corbet married Margaret, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Brent [q. v.], by whom he had three children, Edward, Martha, and Margaret. He died in London on 5 Jan. 1657-8, 'aged fifty-five years or thereabouts,' and was buried on the 14th in the chancel of Great Hasely near his wife, who had died in 1656. By his will he left 'to the publique Library of the uniuersitie of Oxford Bishop Robert Abbot's Comentaryes on the Romans in fower Volumes in manuscript,' besides gifts of books to Shrewsbury and Merton.

[Wood's Life prefixed to Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), p. xxx; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 226, iii. 325, 795, iv. 285, 343; Wood's Fasti, i. 405, 500, ii. 80, 100, 117-18, 159; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1638-9 pp. 46, 68, 1639-40 pp. 508-9, 1640-41 p. 325; History of the Troubles and Tryal of Archbp. Laud, cap. 19, p. 207; Prynne's Canterburies Doome, p. 71; Rushworth's Historical Collections (ed. 1659-1701), pt. iii. vol. ii. pp. 330, 338; Hasted's Kent (fol. ed.), iii. 156; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), ii. 520, iii. 493, 535; Wilkinson's Funeral Sermon on Mrs. Margaret Corbet, 1656; Will. reg. in P.C.C. 58, Wotton.]  CORBET, JOHN (1603–1641), minister of Bonhill, anti-presbyterian author, son of William Corbet, a 'portioner' of Glasgow, was born about 1603. He graduated at the university of Glasgow in 1623, and after acting for some time as schoolmaster at Renfrew was ordained minister of Bonhill in 1637. According to Robert Baillie (Letters and Journals, i. 189), 'upon some rashness of the presbytery of Dumbarton' he was put 'to some subjection of the assembly's declaration,' and 'not being willing to do so fled to Ireland.' This is in direct contradiction of the statement of Burnet (Life of Bedell, 140) that it was for writing a book called 'Lysimachus Nicanor' he was 'forced to flee his country.' The book, however, was published in 1640, while Corbet was already deposed by the assembly 16 April 1639. The full title is 'The Epistle Congratulatorie of Lysimachus Nicanor of the Societie of Jesu to the Covenanters in Scotland, wherein is 