Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hubbock, William

616162Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 28 — Hubbock, William1891William John Hardy

HUBBOCK, WILLIAM (fl. 1605), divine, born in 1560 in the county of Durham; matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 15 April 1580, aged 19; proceeded B.A. from Magdalen College early in 1581; and was in 1585 admitted M.A. from Corpus Christi College, where he was elected a probationer-fellow (cf. Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc.,ii. ii. `91, iii. 95). He was incorporated in the degree of M.A. at Cambridge in 1586. His opinions were puritanical, and he was cited before the Archbishop of Canterbury for a sermon preached about 1590 (cf. Lansdowne MS. lxviii. 77; Strype, Whitgift, ii. 32-4). He became chaplain at the Tower of London, and on 12 July 1594 wrote to Burghley complaining that his lodging at the Tower was defective; he was ill at the time, and stated that his salary was but twenty nobles (ib. lxxvii. 48). In 1595 he published a sermon entitled 'An Apologie of Infants,' a work intended to prove 'that children prevented by death of their Baptisme by God's election may be saved.' On 6 Feb. 1596-7 he was appointed lecturer at St. Botolph's Without, Aldgate, and preached twice on Sundays. When James I visited the Tower in March 1604 on his way to his coronation, Hubbock composed and delivered to the king a congratulatory address which, although in Latin, was published with an English title, 'An Oration gratulatory,' &c., at Oxford, 'by his highnesse special command.' It was reprinted, with translation, in Nichols's 'Progresses of James I,' i. 325*.

About 1609 he claimed in a petition to the king the constable's lodgings in the Tower as a residence; the petition was forwarded to Sir William Waad, lieutenant of the Tower, who reported adversely. The mint (according to Waad) was the usual residence of the chaplain when he had not 'a wife and family as this man hath.' Waad also states that when he came to the Tower Hubbock was resident at a benefice in Leicestershire, and provided 'lewd substitutes' at the Tower. In an undated letter to Burghley Hubbock urged him to provide learned ministers, and described himself as 'a poore exile.'

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i.752-3;Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.ii. 528-9; Bodl. Libr., MS.Rawl.D. 796.]

W. J. H-y.