Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/220

 Venner Fennor's theft was probably committed while Vennar was confined in Wood Street counter.

[Vennar's Works; Corser's Collectanea (Chetham Soc.), v. 323–32; Fleay's English Drama, ii. 265; Ritson's Bibliogr. Poetica, p. 380; Collier's Hist. of Dram. Poetry, iii. 321, 405; Collier's Bibliogr. Catalogue, ii. 466–9; Nichols's Progr. of James I, ii. 398, iii. 139; Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, 1780, x. 72; Hazlitt's Handbook; Hazlitt's Collections and Notes, 1st ser.; Manningham's Diary (Camden Soc.), pp. 82, 93.]  VENNER, THOMAS (d. 1661), plotter, a cooper by trade, was admitted a freeman of Massachusetts in March 1637–8 (, Hist. of Massachusetts, ed. 1853, ii. 448). He returned to England, and became one of the preachers of the Fifth-monarchy men (, v. 272). In April 1657 the Protector's government discovered a plot headed by him for a rising of Fifth-monarchy men in London. A declaration meant to be published by the insurrectionists, and their standard bearing a red lion couchant, with the motto ‘Who shall rouse him up?’ were seized, and exhibited to the parliament by Secretary Thurloe (Commons' Journals, vii. 521;, Memoirs, ed. 1894, ii. 38). In Thurloe's narrative to the house he said: ‘The chief and leader of them is one Venner, that was a wine cooper, and about two years since had a place in the Tower, from whence he was removed, being observed to be a fellow of desperate and bloody spirit, and was suspected to have designs to blow up the Tower with powder. … He had also spake at the same time very desperate words concerning the murdering of his Highness' (, vi. 163, 185). On 9 April Venner was sent to the Tower, and he was still in confinement there in February 1659 (ib. vi. 188, vii. 598).

When released he returned to his old trade of preaching, and on the night of 6 Jan. 1661, after exhorting his adherents in their meeting-house in Coleman Street, set forth with about fifty men to overthrow the government and set up the Fifth monarchy. Their watchword was ‘The King Jesus, and the heads upon the gates.’ After a skirmish with the trained bands in the city they retired to Highgate, and thence to Caen Wood. On 9 Jan. they appeared again in the city, and those who were not killed were captured by the king's guards in Wood Street, after a very sharp fight (, Register, pp. 354, 356;, Chronicle, ed. Phillips, p. 756; , Diary, 10 Jan. 1661; , Coldstream Guards, i. 98). The prisoners were tried on 17 Jan. at the Old Bailey, before Chief-justice Foster, and Venner was hanged and quartered before his meeting-house in Coleman Street on 19 Jan. (Somers Tracts, ed. Scott, vii. 812; State Trials, vi. 106; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 471).

A portrait of Venner is given in Pagitt's ‘Heresiography,’ 1662.

[Authorities mentioned in the article.]  VENNER, TOBIAS (1577–1660), medical writer, was born ‘of honest parents’ at Petherton, Somerset, in 1577. He matriculated from St. Alban Hall, Oxford, on 15 May 1595, graduated B.A. on 1 Feb. 1598–9, and M.A. on 7 July 1603. He then returned to Petherton, where he established himself in practice as a physician. On 31 March 1613 he graduated M.B. and M.D. at Oxford, having obtained a certificate from the regius professor of medicine that he was fit for these degrees, a dispensation for non-attendance on the professor's lectures, and a grace in convocation which relieved him of the necessity of waiting over four congregations for the degrees (Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 34, 125, 126, 128). He subsequently extended his practice to Bridgewater and Bath, where he resided during the spring and autumn, the seasons for visitors in quest of the Bath waters, which Venner did much to popularise. In 1620 he published his first book, ‘Via Recta ad Vitam Longam; or a Plaine Philosophicall Discourse of the Nature, Faculties, and Effects of all such things as by way of Nourishments and Dieteticall Observations made for the Preservation of Health … with the true use of our Bathes of Bathe’ (London, 4to). The dedication to Francis Bacon, lord Verulam, was changed in the second edition (London, 1622, 4to) to one to Prince Charles; other editions appeared in 1628, 1638, 1650, and 1660, all published in quarto in London. The treatise on the ‘Bathes of Bath’ was issued separately in 1628 with a dedication to Henrietta Maria, and reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany’ (1744, vol. ii.) A second part of the ‘Via Recta’ was published (London, 1623, 4to), ‘wherein the true use of sleepe, exercise, excretions, and perturbations is, with their effects, discussed.’

To these works Venner is said to have owed his large practice at Bath. He followed them up in 1621 with ‘A Briefe and Accurate Treatise concerning the taking of the Fume of Tobacco, which very many in these dayes doe too too [sic] licentiously use …’ (London, 4to); reprinted with the ‘Via Recta’ in 1638, 1650, and 1660. It is interesting as showing the prevalence of tobacco-smoking as early as 1621; Venner