Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Higden, William
HIGDEN, WILLIAM (d. 1715), divine, was matriculated sizar of King's College, Cambridge, on 5 April 1682 (University Matriculation Register), and graduated B.A. in 1684, M.A. in 1688. After the revolution he refused to take the oaths, but eventually conformed, and published in defence of his conduct ‘A View of the English Constitution, with respect to the sovereign authority of the Prince and the allegiance of the Subject. In vindication of the lawfulness of taking the oaths to her Majesty by law required,’ 8vo, London, 1709, which he supplemented in the following year by ‘A Defence of the View of the English Constitution … by way of Reply to the several Answers that have been made to it,’ 8vo, London, 1710 (reissued together in 1710 as a third edition and in 1716 as a fifth edition). Hearne said that Higden ‘was always reckoned a man of Parts and Honesty,’ but he considered that Higden's ‘View’ was completely confuted. ‘Nor,’ Hearne adds, ‘is the government like to thank him for his Performance, since he resolves all into Possession, and makes all Usurpers have a title to Allegiance, not excepting even Oliver himself.’ Higden took the degree of D.D. in 1710, and became prebendary of Canterbury in May 1713. He died on 28 Aug. 1715, and was buried on 5 Sept. in the new chapel, Westminster (Hist. Reg. Chron. Diary, 1715, p. 66; Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 49–50). He wrote also: 1. ‘The Case of Sureties in Baptism’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1701. 2. ‘Occasional Conformity a most unjustifiable Practice’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1704. 3. ‘The Case of the Admission of Dissenters to the Holy Communion before they renounce their Schism. The Second Edition,’ 4to, London, 1715. He had likewise a share in the translation of ‘Tacitus,’ 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1698.
[Brit. Mus. Cat.; Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 284, &c.; Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, p. 230.]