Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bagshaw, Edward (d.1662)
BAGSHAW, EDWARD, the elder (d. 1662), royalist, politician, and author, was of a Derbyshire family. In 1604 he entered at Brasenose College, Oxford, where his tutor was Robert Bolton, a puritan writer of some note, whose life was subsequently written by Bagshaw. He proceeded B.A. in 1608, and was entered of the Middle Temple, of which society he became in due course one of the benchers. At this time his leanings were entirely upon the side of the puritans, and when, in 1639, he was in his turn elected Lent reader, he took the opportunity of delivering two discourses to the effect that 'a parliament may be held without bishops,' and that 'bishops may not meddle in civil affairs.' The lectures attracted the notice of Laud, and Bagshaw was prohibited from continuing them. Through the popularity which these proceedings gained for him, he obtained in the following year his election to the Long parliament as a burgess for the borough of Southwark.
Bagshaw did not long continue to act with the party which he had adopted, and when the king retired to Oxford Bagshaw joined him there and sat in the so-called parliament which Charles convoked in that city. In 1644 he was taken prisoner by the parliamentary army, and consigned to the King's Bench prison in Southwark; and while in this confinement he composed the greater number of his works. He was set at liberty in 1646, died in 1662, and was buried at Morton Pinckney, in Northamptonshire, near which place his property lay. The following is a list of his writings: 1. 'Life and Death of Mr. Robert Bolton' London, 1633. 2. Editions of three of Bolton's works, 1633-35-37. 3. Several speeches in parliament, viz. (1) on 9 Nov. 1640, (2) on 9 Feb. 1640 (1641); 'Concerning Episcopacy,' 18 Feb. 1640 (1641); 12 Jan. 1641 (1642), 'The Trial of the Twelve Bishops.' 4. Two arguments in parliament, viz. (1) 'Concerning the Canons,' (2) 'Concerning the Præmunire on these Canons.' 5. 'Treatise defending the Revenues of the Church,' London, 1646. 6. 'Treatise maintaining the Doctrine, Liturgy, and Discipline of the Church of England,' 1646. 7. 'Short Answer to the Book of W. Prynne entitled University of Oxford's Plea refuted' (1848, printed). 8. 'De Monarchia Absoluta,' 1659. 9. 'Just Vindication of the questioned part of the reading in Middle Temple Hall, 20 Feb. 1639,' London, 1660; with 'A Narrative of the Cause of their Silencing by the Archbishop of Canterbury' (printed together apud Rushworth). 10. 'Short Defence of the Reformation of the Church by K. Edward and Q. Elizabeth' (not printed).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses (Bliss), iii. 618.]