Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/100

 Oldcorne's head and quarters were set up in different parts of Worcester, and it is related that 'his heart and bowels were cast into the fire, which continued sending forth a lively flame for sixteen days, notwithstanding the rains that fell during that time, which was look'd upon as a prodigy, and a testimony of his innocence' (, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, ed. 1742, ii. 488). His portrait was engraved by Bouttats, and Bromley was told there was a print of him by Pass.

 OLDE, JOHN (fl. 1545–1555), translator. [See .]

 OLDENBURG, HENRY (1615?–1677), natural philosopher and man of letters, who sometimes signed himself anagrammatically as 'Grubendol,' born about 1615, was the son of Heinrich Oldenburg (d. 1634), a tutor in the academical gymnasium at Bremen, and afterwards professor in the Royal University of Dorpat. The date 1626, usually given as that of Oldenburg's birth, is incorrect (Dr. Althaus in Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, Munich, 1889, No. 212); and the statement, so often repeated, that he was descended from the counts of Oldenburg appears to have been merely a hasty inference from the fact that he is described in his Oxford matriculation certificate as 'nobilis Saxo.'

Oldenburg was educated at the evangelical school at Bremen, which he left for the Gymnasium Illustre in the same city on 2 May 1633. There he took the degree of master in theology on 2 Nov. 1639, the subject of his thesis being 'De ministerio ecclesiastico et magistratu politico.' About 1640 he came to England, and lived here for some eight years, 'gaining favour and respect from many distinguished gentlemen in parliament,' After 1648 he seems to have travelled on the continent, returning to Bremen about 1652. In August of that year a property which had been held by his father and grandfather, but which was probably of small pecuniary value, the Vicaria S. Liborii, was confirmed to him 'free of all taxation.'

In the summer of 1653 the council of Bremen sent Oldenburg as their agent to negotiate with Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be respected in the naval war between England and Holland. His appointment was ineffectually opposed, on the grounds that during his former residence in England he had taken the king's side against the parliament, and that he had 'a peculiar temper, which prevented him from agreeing well with others,' His instructions were dated 30 June 1653. In a letter dated London, 7 April 1654, preserved in the 'Acts of the Senate 'at Bremen, he announced the conclusion of peace between England and Holland on 5 April, and offered his further services. This offer the council accepted when Sweden attacked Bremen in the summer of that year. Oldenburg's new letters to Cromwell were dated 22 Sept.

While diplomacy occupied a part of Oldenburg's time in England, he chiefly devoted himself to scientific study or to literature. In 1654 he made the acquaintance of John Milton, then Cromwell's Latin secretary. Several of Milton's letters to Oldenburg are Published in Milton's 'Epistolæ Familiares.' In the earliest of them (6 July 1654), Milton complimented Oldenburg on speaking English more correctly and idiomatically than any other foreigner that he knew. In May 1656 Oldenburg was in Kent. Later in the year he was acting as tutor to Henry O'Brien, son of, sixth earl of Thomond [q. v.], and to Richard Jones, son of Catherine, lady Ranelagh, the sister of the Hon. Robert Boyle; and early in 1656 he arrived with his pupils in Oxford. In June he himself was entered a student of the university, 'by the name and title of Henricus Oldenburg, Bremensis, nobilis Saxo' (, Fasti Oxon. pt. ii.) With Boyle, the uncle of his pupil Jones, Oldenburg enjoyed constant intercourse at Oxford. Wilkins, Wallis, and Petty were also among his friends there. Encouraged by their example, he devoted himself to 'the new experimental learning.' Writing to Milton early in 1656, he declared: 'There are two things I wish to study—Nature and her Creator.' And later in the year he wrote to another friend, Edward Lawrence, that he believed there were still some few who sought for truth, instead of hunting after the vain shadows of scholastic theology and nominalist philosophy—men who dared to forsake the old Aristotelian methods, and cherished the belief that the world is not yet too old nor the living race