Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 62.djvu/405

 annuity of 60l. for life. This pension he resigned on quitting his lordship's service. He then retired to the house of his friend Dr. John Wilby, a physician, who resided in the city. In 1654 or 1655 he and a few select friends purchased the house and garden at Hoxton formerly belonging to Lord Monteagle, where they lived in common, putting into one fund what had been saved from the wreck of their fortunes, and devoting themselves to prayer, meditation, and study. Woodhead was now avowedly a lay adherent of the Roman catholic church. The statement that he spent his time at Hoxton in educating youth is incorrect.

In 1660 the king's commissioners summoned him from his retirement and reinstated him in his fellowship. He accepted it again, rather as a mark of justice due to the cause for which he was deprived of it than with any design to retain it as a protestant, and in fact he never communicated with the church of England then or afterwards. Finding residence in college inconsistent with his religious principles, which were now well known, he soon withdrew to his solitude at Hoxton. But through the influence of Obadiah Walker [q. v.], the master of University College, he enjoyed the profits of his fellowship for eighteen years, and did not formally resign the appointment until 23 April 1678, a few days before his death (, Hist. of University College, p. 257). Wood says ‘he was so wholly devoted to retirement and the prosecution of his several studies that no worldly concerns shared any of his affections, only satisfying himself with bare necessaries; and so far from coveting applause or preferment (though perhaps the compleatness of his learning and great worth might have given him as just and fair a claim to both as any others of his persuasion) that he used all endeavours to secure his beloved privacy and conceal his name’ (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1158). He died at Hoxton on 4 May 1678, and was buried in St. Pancras churchyard, where an altar-monument was placed over his remains, with a Latin inscription: ‘Elegi abjectus esse in domo Dei; et mansi in solitudine, non quærens quod mihi utile est, sed quod multis’ (, Epitaphs at Saint Pancras, i. 22). If James II had continued on his throne two years longer, Woodhead's body would have been translated to the chapel in University College, where a monument would have been erected ‘equal to his great merits and worth.’ The intended inscription has been printed (Athenæ Oxon. iii. 1165 n.)

By his will, dated 8 June 1675, Woodhead left the residue of the yearly rents of his lands at Meltham ‘to ye minister of the Word of God yt shall be settled and officiatt at ye Chappell of Meltham afforesaid at the time of my decease, and so to his successors in the same place and office for ever.’ The will and four letters written by Woodhead have been printed by the Rev. Joseph Hughes, who says: ‘These documents, both purely protestant in their character, seem to disprove the statements so frequently made and generally believed as to his having joined the Romish church, and tend to establish our confidence in him as a consistent clergyman of the church of England’ (, Hist. of Meltham, 1866, p. 82). It is certain, however, that Woodhead was a member of the Roman catholic church, though he never entered the priesthood.

Daniel Whitby [q. v.] described Woodhead as ‘the most ingenious and solid writer of the whole Roman party;’ Thomas Hearne more emphatically wrote: ‘I always looked upon Mr. Abraham Woodhead to be one of the greatest men that ever this nation produced;’ and Wood says that ‘his works plainly show him to have been a person of sound and solid judgment, well read in the fathers and in the polemical writings of the most eminent and renowned defenders of the church of England.’

His works appeared either anonymously or under initials, and many of them were printed after his death at the private press of his friend Obadiah Walker. Among them are: 1. ‘Some Instructions concerning the Art of Oratory,’ London, 1659, 12mo; 2nd edit., augmented, Oxford, 1682. 2. Treatises on ancient church government, in five parts, which are respectively entitled as follows: (a) ‘A brief Account of antient Church Government, with a Reflection on several modern Writings of the Presbyterians (the Assembly of Divines, their Jus Divinum Ministerii Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, published 1654, and Dr. Blondel's Apologia pro Sententia Hieronymi, and others), touching this Subject,’ London, 1662 and 1685, 4to. The authorship has been erroneously ascribed to Dr. Richard Holden. (b) ‘Ancient Church-Government, and the Succession of the Clergy,’ pt. ii., Oxford, 1688, 4to. (c) ‘Antient Church Government, Part III: Of Heresy and Schisme [Lond.] 1736, printed at the cost of Cuthbert Constable, who was the “Catholic Mæcenas of his day.”’ (d) ‘Antient Church-Government, Part IV: What former Councils have been lawfully General and obliging. And what have been the Doctrines of such Councils, obliging in relation to the Reformation. Reviewing the Exceptions made by the Reformed.’ This remains in manuscript. (e) ‘Church Go-