Page:The History of the Church & Manor of Wigan part 2.djvu/220

Rh In July, 1637, the bishop interested himself in successfully promoting a petition of the inhabitants of Wigan to omit the name of the town from the ship money writ, the number of the poor being so great, and the making of pots and pans in the town only providing small maintenance for the people.

In this year the bishop had another heavy trial in the premature death of his second surviving son, Dove Bridgeman, rector of Barrow and Tattenhall, and a prebendary of Chester cathedral, who died of fever at Chester on 17th September, 1637. Dove Bridgeman was born at Peterborough, 21st March, 1609-10,,., [sic] and named after his godfather Thomas Dove, bishop of Peterborough. He went up to Magdalen College, Cambridge, in 1624, and, being originally intended for the law, he was entered a student of the common law at Gray's Inn in 1627, where he continued till January, 1629, and then travelled beyond the sea with Sir Robert Carr (afterwards Earl of Ancrum), ambassador to the King of Bohemia. He was made Master of Arts at Cambridge, 13th June, 1631, and admitted to an ad eundem degree at Oxford on the 21st of the same month. Having received holy orders he was collated to a prebend at Chester, 3rd October, 1634 (in the place of William Bispham who was removed to another Stall), and became rector of Barrow and of Tattenhall, in the county of Chester, in 1635. Dove Bridgeman is spoken of as a young man of great promise; but his career was cut short by a burning fever, of which he died on 17th September, 1637, and was buried in his mother's grave in Chester Cathedral above the choir. He was married 17th October, 1635, in the chapel of the bishop's Palace, Chester, by archdeacon Snell, to Frances Bennet, by whom he had, with a younger son Francis, born at Chester, 21st August, 1637, who died in September of the following year, an only surviving son Charles Bridgeman, born 1st July, 1636, in Mr. Prebendary Essex Clark's house in the Abbey Court, Chester, who was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he took his degree of bachelor of Arts 11th July, 1659. He afterwards became archdeacon of Richmond, to which he was collated 10th June, 1664. Wood says that his breeding in grammar and trivial learning had been at Harlem beyond the seas, where under his name was published in 1653 "Carmen contra præcipua hujus sæculi vitia." He died unmarried 26th November, 1678, and was buried in the chapel of Queen's College, Oxford, where there is the following inscription to his memory: "Sub spe reditus ad vitam Caroli Bridgeman A. Magistri Novembris, 26: Anno Dni 1678, Denati Reliquiæ infra reponuniur." Bishop Bridgeman and his son Orlando settled a jointure of £80 per annum upon Dove Bridgeman's widow, who afterwards married Dr. John Hacket, bishop of Lichfield.

Laud had more than once commended his own kinsman Dr. Edward Moreton to the care and favour of the bishop of Chester,