Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/441

 ID-s. iv. NOV. 4, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 363 paid a flying visit to Scotland. For it is his own statement ('Song of Songs') that he went abroad in 1593, and that having there seen the falseness of his earlier views he returned from beyond sea in 1598. He now received encouragement in his "ministerial function by my Lord Anderson's suit to his Grace of Canterbury," i.e., Whitgift. "Lord Anderson " was Sir Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief Justice. He and Whitgift were both Lincolnshire men. Clapham soon became a notable preacher in London. Manningham mentions eight of his sermons between November, 1602, and April, 1603, and reports four of them at some length, one being on the 'Song of Songs.' He preached at the church in Foster Lane End, and at his own church, St. Peter's, Paul's Wharf. The diarist calls him "a blacke fellowe, with a sower looke, but a good spirit, bold and sometymes bluntly witty" (' Diary,' in Camd. Soc.). His London sermons on the ' Song of Songs,' down to chap. iv. verse 6 of that book, are in print, in five parts. When the first part was printed I do not know ; but it was reprinted to accompany parts ii. and iii., London, 1603. The author writes from his house in Red Cross Street, April, 1603. He complains that his former asso- ciates misrepresent his teaching, and, in particular, he is indignant at some charges made against him in an advertisement pre- fixed to the ' Treatise of Vocations,' 1603, by William Perkins, just printed at the Cam- bridge University Press, and condemned by ecclesiastical authority. In his dedication to Edmund, Lord Sheffield, KG., he says that a year ago his " native country would like to have secretly bastinadoed" him. Parts iv. and v. appeared in 1606, with a note, " The residue expect as occasion shall minister." They are dedicated to two ladies of his London congregation. Lady Grissell Sheffield and Lady Mary Williamson. The former lady was the daughter of Sir Edmund Ander- son, Lord Chief Justice (Clapham's patron), and her husband was son of Edmund, Lord Sheffield, mentioned just above ('D.N.B.,' Hi. 12) ; the latter lady was the daughter of Thomas Anderson, elder brother of the Lord Chief Justice, and wife of Sir Richard William- son, of Gainsborough, co. Line., Knt, (Harl. Soc., iv. 98). There was a connexion between the Sheffields and the Claphams of Beamsley, for Greshain Clapham, who died in 1602, had a son Sir Sheffield Clapham, Knt., born in 1580, whose brother George had a grandson, another Sheffield Clapham. Perhaps Ander- aon, who was severe against Puritans, be- friended Clapham for family reasons more than for his change of opinions. _ The connexion of Clapham and his friends with the county and diocese of Lincoln is observable. In 1603 he got into trouble. The Government were enforcing precautions against the plague. Clapham printed an ' Epistle,' in which he repeated what he had preached, that there was a supernatural plague, the direct stroke of God, which was mortal, but not infectious. He was com- mitted to the Gatehouse at Westminster six weeks before Christmas, 1603. The Deans of St. Paul's and Westminster were sent to interview him. He offered to modify the parts which he contended had been wilfully misrepresented, but Dean Andrewes asked him for an absolute recantation, which he refused to make. In 1605 he was still in the Gatehouse, whence he issued his ' Doctor Andros his Prosopopeia answered, and neces- sarily directed to his Maiestie, for remouing of Catholike Scandale. 2. Sacred Policie, Directed of dutie to our sweet yong Prince Henry. 3. An Epistle, Directed to such as are troubled in ruinde about the stirres in our Church,' London, 1605. This gives a list of sixteen works by Clapham. One of hi» friends was " Sir David Murrey, Knight" (' Song of Songs,' part v., 1606), who was in attendance upon " his grace " at Court, which said "his Grace" had "done well for" the author. "His Grace" is Clapham's way of indicating Henry, Prince of Wales, to whom the later editions of his ' Briefe of the Bible' were dedicated (fourth ed., 1639). This helps us to decide that of the two contemporary knights named David Murray, Clapham's friend was he who was Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Groom of the Stole, and Gentle- man of the Robes to that Prince, with whom he was a special favourite ('D.N.B.,' xxxix. 353). In 1609 Clapham published 'A Chrono- logical Discourse touching 1. The Chvrch. 2. Christ. 3. Anti-Christ. 4. Gog and Magog,' ike., and dedicated it to the ministers in the Archdeaconry of Canterbury from Norborne, in East Kent, 6 April, 1609. Bohn's 'Lowndes.' 1858, i. 466, gives a good account of eleven of his books, but omits the ' Song of Songs,' ' Dr. Andres's Prosopopeia,' and the' Ch ronological Discou rse.J The' Song of Songs' is unnoticed by the writer of the article in the ' D.N.B.,1 to which this paper may be considered as a supplement. Other notices of his books are in Sinker's ' English Books before 1601 in Trin. Coll., Camb.,' 1885, p. 390, and Hazlitt's ' Handbook,' 1867, p. 110. Eight of them are in the York Minster Library. W. C. B.