Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/303

 diers Penny Bible, London, printed by R. Smith for Sam. Wade, 1693, reproduced in facsimile with an Introductory Note,’ London, 1862, sm. 8vo (No. 3 altered, with the texts from the authorised version somewhat incorrectly quoted). 5. ‘A proper Dyaloge betwene a gentillman and a husbandman eche complaynynge to other their miserable calamite through the ambicion of clergye with a compendious olde treatyse shewynge howe that we ought to have the Scripture in Englysshe, Hans Luft, 1530, reproduced in facsimile, with an Introduction,’ London, 1863, 8vo. 6. ‘The prophete Jonas, with an Introduction by Wm. Tyndale, reproduced in facsimile, to which is added Coverdale's version of Jonah, with an Introduction,’ London, 1863, 8vo (Nos. 5 and 6 reproduced from the unique copies in the library of Lord Arthur Hervey). 7. ‘The Standard Edition of the English New Testament of the Genevan Version,’ London, 1864, 8vo (reprinted from the ‘Journal of Sacred Literature,’ July 1864). 8. ‘A Description of the Great Bible, 1539, and the six editions of Cranmer's Bible, 1540 and 1541, printed by Grafton and Whitchurch; also of the editions in large folio of the Authorised Version printed in 1611, 1613, 1617, 1634, 1640; illustrated with titles and with passages from the editions, the genealogies and the maps, copied in facsimile, also with an identification of every leaf of the first seven and of many leaves of the other editions, on fifty-one plates, together with an original leaf of each of the editions described,’ London, 1865, folio. 9. ‘The Bible by Coverdale, 1535, remarks on the titles, the year of publication, &c., with facsimiles,’ London, 1867, 8vo. 10. ‘A List of most of the Words noticed exhibiting the peculiar orthography used in Tindale's New Testament,’ Bristol, 1871, folio (single sheet, circulated to inquire as to the edition ‘finished in 1535’). 11. ‘A Bibliographical Description of the Editions of the New Testament, Tyndale's Version in English, with numerous readings, comparisons of texts, and historical notices, the notes in full from the edition of November 1534, an account of two octavo editions of the New Testament of the Bishop's version, without numbers to the verses, illustrated with 73 plates,’ London, 1878, 4to. 12. ‘Description of a Title-page of a New Testament dated anno 1532,’ Bristol, 1885, 4to (with facsimile of title-page, two leaves).

[A Brief Memoir of Francis Fry of Bristol, by his son, Theodore Fry, privately printed, 1887, 8vo, with portraits of Fry and members of his family, and other illustrations; Joseph Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, 1867, i. 814–15.] 

FRY, JOHN (1609–1657), theological writer, son of William Fry of Iwerne Minster, Dorsetshire, by Milicent, daughter of Robert Swaine of Tarrant Gunville, Dorsetshire, was born in 1609, being fourteen years of age at the herald's visitation of Dorset in 1623. Wood's account, to be received with caution, is that he ‘had ran through most, if not all, religions, even to Rantisme.’ In October 1640 he was elected a member for Shaftesbury in the Long parliament, but his election was declared void. Somewhat later (probably after the order of 6 Sept. 1643) he was placed on the county committee for Wiltshire, which acted in conjunction with the committee for plundered ministers. Dugdale calls him a colonel, but there is no evidence that he was in the parliamentary army. After Pride's purge (6 Dec. 1648) he was called to the parliament, put on the committee for plundered ministers, and on 6 Jan. 1649 was included in the commission for the trial of the king. He owed his appointment to his having severed himself from the ‘rigid presbyterians,’ though it does not appear that he joined any other religious body.

Fry is commonly called a regicide, but he attended only the early sittings of the high court. He was one of seven commissioners whose places had been filled by others, before 27 Jan., the date when sentence was passed; nor did he sign the warrant for the king's execution. It may be doubted whether his absence is to be explained by his having to meet a charge of blasphemy, or whether, as is more probable, that charge was brought against him in consequence of some reluctance on his part to proceed to extreme measures against the king.

For a number of years, according to his own account, Fry had been ‘a searcher of the scriptures,’ and his conversation had given the impression, a twelvemonth back, that he denied the deity of Christ, an impression which he declares to be groundless. But he was willing to extend toleration to antitrinitarians. On or about 15 Jan. 1649 he was in the committee-room of the House of Commons when Cornelius Holland [q. v.] asked him to give his aid in the committee for plundered ministers towards the liberation of a minister who had lain two or three years in prison for ‘denying the personality of Christ.’ This prisoner was almost certainly John Biddle [q. v.] Fry readily agreed to the request. Hereupon Colonel John Downes [q. v.], who was present, broke into passionate language on the subject of Fry's own opinions. Two or three days later Fry had a discussion with Downes in the painted chamber, where the high court was about to