Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/185

  

DODWELL, HENRY, the elder (1641–1711), scholar and theologian, was born in 1641 at Dublin, though both his parents were of English extraction. His father, William Dodwell, was in the army; his mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Francis Slingsby. At the time of his birth the Irish rebellion, which resulted in the destruction of a large number of protestants, was going on; and for the first six years of his life he was confined, with his mother, within the city of Dublin, while his father's estate in Connaught was possessed by the rebels. In 1648 the Dodwells came over to England in the hope of finding some help from their friends. They settled first in London and then at York, in the neighbourhood of which city Mrs. Dodwell's brother, Sir Henry Slingsby, resided. For five years Dodwell was educated in the free school at York. His father returned to Ireland to look after his estate, and died of the plague at Waterford in 1650; and his mother soon afterwards fell into a consumption, of which she died. The orphan boy was reduced to the greatest straits, from which he was at last relieved, in 1654, by his uncle, Henry Dodwell, the incumbent of Hemley and Newbourne in Suffolk. This kind relation paid his debts, took him into his own house, and helped him in his studies. In 1656 he was admitted into Trinity College, Dublin, and became a favourite pupil of Dr. John Stearn, for whom he conceived a deep attachment. He was elected in due time first scholar, and then fellow of the college; but in 1666 he was obliged to resign his fellowship because he declined to take holy orders, which the statutes of the college obliged all fellows to do when they were masters of arts of three years' standing. Bishop Jeremy Taylor offered to use his influence to procure a dispensation to enable Dodwell to hold his fellowship in spite of the statute; but Dodwell refused the offer because he thought it would be a bad precedent for the college. His reasons for declining to take orders were, his sense of the responsibility of the sacred ministry, the mean opinion he had of his own abilities, and, above all, a conviction that he could be of more service to the cause of religion and the church as a layman than he could be as a clergyman, who might be suspected of being biassed by self-interest. In 1674 he settled in London, ‘as being a place where was variety of learned persons, and which afforded opportunity of meeting with books, both of ancient and modern authors’. In 1675 he made the acquaintance of Dr. William Lloyd, afterwards bishop of St. Asaph, and subsequently of Worcester; and when Dr. Lloyd was made chaplain to the Princess of Orange, he accompanied him into Holland. He was also wont to travel with his friend, when he became bishop, on his visitation tours, and on other episcopal business; but when Lloyd took the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, and Dodwell declined to do so, there was a breach between the friends which was never healed. He also spent much of his time with the famous Bishop Pearson at Chester. In 1688 he was appointed, without any solicitation on his part, Camden professor or prælector of history at Oxford, and delivered several valuable ‘prælections’ in that capacity. But in 1691 he was deprived of his professorship because he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. He was told ‘by learned counsel that the act seemed not to reach his case, in that he was prelector, not professor;’ but Dodwell was not the man to take advantage of such chances, and, as he had refused to retain his fellowship when he could not conscientiously comply with its conditions, so also he did in the case of the professorship or prælectorship. He still continued to live for some time at Oxford, and then retired to Cookham, near Maidenhead. Thence he removed to Shottesbrooke, a village on the other side of Maidenhead. He was persuaded to take up his abode there by [q. v.], the squire of the place. Cherry and Dodwell used to meet at Maidenhead, whither they went daily, the one from Cookham and the other from Shottesbrooke, to hear the news and to learn what books were newly published. Being kindred spirits, and holding the same views on theological and political topics, they struck up a great friendship, and Mr. Cherry fitted up a house for his friend near his own. At Shottesbrooke Dodwell spent the remainder of his life. In 1694 he married Ann Elliot, a lady in whose father's house at Cookham he had lodged; by her he had ten children, six of whom survived him. Cherry and Dodwell, being nonjurors, could not attend their parish church; they therefore maintained jointly a nonjuring chaplain, [q. v.], who afterwards became Dodwell's biographer. But in 1710, on the death of Bishop Lloyd of Norwich, the last but one of the surviving nonjuring prelates, and ‘the surrendry of Bishop Ken, there being