Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/74

  against this indignity, and rehearsed his grievances anew. On 3 June he addressed himself in similar terms to the queen, and no further restriction seems to have been placed on the book's circulation. Smith's views on the value of archery were attacked about 1591 by Humfrey Barwick in his ‘Breefe discourse concerning the force and effect of all manuall weapons of fire.’

In 1594 Smith published a second military treatise of a more practical character than its forerunner; it was called ‘Instructions, Observations, and Orders Militarie, requisite for all Chieftaines, Captains, and higher and lower men of charge, and Officers, to understand, knowe, and observe. Composed by Sir John Smythe, knighte, 1591, and now first imprinted, 1594,’ London, by Richard Jones, 4to. It had some sale, and was reissued in the following year. The dedication, inscribed to the ‘knights, esquires, and gentlemen of England that are honorablie delighted in the arte and science militarie,’ displayed much knowledge of history.

At length, on 2 March 1595–6, Smith obtained the permission he had long sought to sell Little Baddow, and Anthony Pennyng of Kettleberg, Suffolk, purchased it on 30 April. Smith continued to reside in the village. In June 1596 he was at Colchester with Sir Thomas Lucas, who was training the county militia. In their company was Smith's kinsman, Thomas Seymour, second son of, earl of Hertford [q. v.], and brother of Edward Seymour, lord Beauchamp, a claimant to the royal succession. On the morning of 13 June Smith rode into the field where the pikemen were practising, and bade the soldiers forsake their colonel and follow Seymour and himself. ‘The common people,’ he added, ‘have been oppressed and used as bondmen these thirty years; but if you will go with me I will see a reformation, and you shall be used as freemen’ (, Annals, iv. 13). The words were at once reported to Lord Burghley. Smith was arrested on a charge of treason and sent to the Tower. When examined in the Star-chamber on 14 June, he confessed the truth of the facts as reported, but pleaded that he had supped too generously for the state of his health the night before. On the 26th of the month he sent an abject apology to Burghley, offering to confine himself thenceforth to his house at Little Baddow, and to publish a confession of his fault in the market-place at Colchester. No further steps were taken against him, but he remained in the Tower till February 1598, when the queen directed that he might repair to his house in Essex on giving good security not to go a mile from it without special license. This condition was enforced till the end of the queen's reign (ib. pp. 414–18; Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Soc. pp. 88–97; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1595–7, pp. 235 seq., 1598–1601, pp. 2, 17, 408, 417). He was buried in the church of Little Baddow on 1 Sept. 1607 (Reg.)

 SMITH or SMYTH, JOHN (d. 1612), the Se-baptist and reputed father of the English general baptists, was, according to the principal authorities, matriculated as a sizar of Christ's College, Cambridge, on 26 Nov. 1571, graduated B.A. in 1575–6, was afterwards elected a fellow of his college, and commenced M.A. in 1579 (, Athenæ Cantabr. iii. 38;, True Story of John Smyth, p. 1). (1562–1618) [q. v.] is said to have been at one time his tutor (, Chron. of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1844, p. 450). But Johnson was not matriculated as a pensioner at Christ's College until April 1579. The suggestion that the Se-baptist was the John Smith of Christ's College who commenced M.A. in 1593 does not seem well supported (, Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, 1897, p. 131). Smyth was ordained a clergyman by William Wickham, bishop of Lincoln between 1584 and 1595. In a sermon ad clerum preached by him on Ash Wednesday 1585–6 Smyth advocated a judaical observance of the Sabbath. He was consequently cited before the vice-chancellor of the university and heads of colleges, and in the end he undertook to interpret his opinion of such things as had been by him doubtfully and uncertainly delivered, more clearly, in another sermon ad clerum, first submitting it to the vice-chancellor for his approval (, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 415). The Se-baptist must not be identified, as has been alleged, with the clergyman named Smith who was confined for eleven months in the Marshalsea in 1597; the Christian name of that divine was William. The Se-baptist was preacher or lecturer in the city of Lincoln from 1603 to 1605. During the latter year he separated from the established church after nine months of doubt and study. According to his own account, he held at Coventry, with Masters Dod, Hildersham, and Barbon, a conference ‘about withdrawing from true Churches, Ministers, and Worship corrupted.’ In 1606 he established a congregation of separatists at Gainsborough. This church or congregation was not organised on the lines of the ‘Holy Discipline,’ but upon original principles. Its pastor held that Scripture knew of but one class of