Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/135

 alive for being a Lutheran; but he died persisting in his opinion. At this conduct the greatest part of the people took such pleasure that they were not afraid to make him many exclamations to strengthen his courage. Even his children assisted at it, comforting him in such a manner that it seemed as if he had been led to a wedding’ (Ambassades, vol. iv.) Ridley declared that he rejoiced at Rogers's end, and that news of it destroyed ‘a lumpish heaviness in his heart.’ Bradford wrote that Rogers broke the ice valiantly.

There is a portrait of Rogers in the ‘Herωologia,’ which is reproduced in Chester's ‘Biography’ (1861). A woodcut representing his execution is in Foxe's ‘Actes and Monuments.’

By his wife, Adriana Pratt or de Weyden, Rogers had, with three daughters, of whom Susannah married William Short, grocer, eight sons—Daniel (1538?–1591) [q. v.], John (see below), Ambrose, Samuel, Philip, Bernard, Augustine, Barnaby. Numerous families, both in England and America, claim descent from Rogers through one or other of these sons. But no valid genealogical evidence is in existence to substantiate any of these claims. The names of the children of Rogers's sons are unknown, except in the case of Daniel, and Daniel left a son and daughter, whose descendants are not traceable. According to a persistent tradition, Richard Rogers (1550?–1618) [q. v.], incumbent of Wethersfield, and the father of a large family, whose descent is traceable, was a grandson of the martyr Rogers. Such argument as can be adduced on the subject renders the tradition untrustworthy. More value may be attached to the claim of the family of Frederic Rogers, lord Blachford [q. v.], to descend from John Rogers; his pedigree has been satisfactorily traced to Vincent Rogers, minister of Stratford-le-Bow, Middlesex, who married there Dorcas Young on 25 Oct. 1586, and may have been the martyr's grandson. Lord Blachford's ‘family,’ wrote the genealogist, Colonel Chester, ‘of all now living, either in England or America, possesses the most (if not the only) reasonable claims to the honour of a direct descent from the martyr.’

The second son, (1540?–1603?), born at Wittenberg about 1540, came to England with the family in 1548, and was naturalised in 1552. He matriculated as a pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 17 May 1558, graduated B.A. in 1562–3, and M.A. in 1567, and was elected a fellow. He afterwards migrated to Trinity College, where he became a scholar. In 1574 he was created LL.D., and on 21 Nov. of that year was admitted to the College of Advocates. He also joined the Inner Temple. He was elected M.P. for Wareham on 23 Nov. 1585, 29 Oct. 1586, and 4 Feb. 1588–9. Meanwhile he was employed on diplomatic missions abroad, at first conjointly with his brother Daniel. In August 1580 he was sent alone to arrange a treaty with the town of Elving, and afterwards went to the court of Denmark to notify the king of his election to the order of the Garter; thence he proceeded to the court of Poland. In 1588 he was a commissioner in the Netherlands to negotiate the ‘Bourborough Treaty’ with the Duke of Parma, and his facility in speaking Italian proved of great service. Later in 1588 Rogers went to Embden to treat with Danish commissioners respecting the traffic of English merchants with Russia. From 11 Oct. 1596 till his resignation on 3 March 1602–3 he was chancellor of the cathedral church of Wells. He married Mary, daughter of William Leete of Everden, Cambridgeshire. Cassandra Rogers, who married Henry, son of Thomas Saris of Horsham, Sussex, was possibly his daughter. He must be distinguished from John Rogers, M.P. for Canterbury in 1596, and from a third John Rogers, who was knighted on 23 July 1603. The former was of an ancient Dorset family; the latter of a Kentish family (, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 385;, John Rogers, pp. 235, 271–4; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. xi. 306).

[There is an elaborate biography, embracing a genealogical account of his family, by Joseph Lemuel Chester, London, 1861. Foxe, who is the chief original authority, gave two accounts of Rogers which differ in some detail. The first appeared in his Rerum in Ecclesia Pars Prima, Basle, 1559; the second in his Actes and Monuments, 1563. The Latin version is the fuller. An important source of information is Rogers's own account of his first examination at Southwark, which was discovered in manuscript in his cell after his death by his wife and son. This report was imperfectly printed, and somewhat garbled by Foxe. A completer transcript is among Foxe's manuscripts at the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 389, ff. 190–202), which Chester printed in an appendix to his biography. See also Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 121, 546; Strype's Annals; Anderson's Annals of the Bible; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.]

 ROGERS, JOHN (1572?–1636), puritan divine, a native of Essex, was born about 1572. He was a near relative of Richard Rogers (1550?–1618) [q. v.] who provided for his education at Cambridge. Twice did 1 the ungrateful lad sell his books and waste the proceeds. His kinsman would have dis-