Baker wrote:
- 'The Devout Christian's Companion for Holy Days,' London, 1757, 12mo.
- 'Holy Altar and Sacrifice explained in some familiar dialogues on the Mass,' London, 1768, 12mo, being an abridgment of F. A. Mason's 'Liturgical Discourse on the Mass.'
- 'A Lenten Monitor to Christians, in pious thoughts on the Gospels for every day in Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Tuesday, inclusive,' third edition, London, 1769, 12mo; again London, 1827, 8vo.
- 'The Christian Advent,' 1782.
- 'Sundays kept holy; in moral reflections on the Gospels for the Sundays from Easter to Advent. Being a supplement to the Christian Advent and Lenten Monitor,' second edition, London, 1772, 12mo.
- 'The Devout Communicant,' London, 1813, 12mo.
- 'Essay on the Cord of St. Francis.'
- 'Scripture Antiquity.'
- 'Meditations on the Lord's Prayer,' from the French.
Dr. Oliver says: 'Without much originality all these works are remarkable for unction, solidity, and moderation; but we wish the style was less diffuse and redundant of words.'
[Oliver's History of the Catholic Religion in Cornwall, &c., 543, 571; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]
BAKER, PHILIP, D.D. (fl. 1558–1601), provost of King's College, was born at Barnstaple, Devonshire, in or about 1524, and educated at Eton, whence he was elected in 1540 to King's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1544; M.A., 1548; B.D., 1554; D.D., 1562). He was nominated provost of King's College by Queen Elizabeth in 1558. Baker held several church livings and cathedral appointments; and he was vice-chancellor of the university in 1561-2. About February 1561-2 he was compelled to resign the rectory of St. Andrew Wardrobe on account of his refusal to subscribe a confession of faith which Grindal, bishop of London, required from all his clergy. Queen Elizabeth occupied the provost's lodge at King's College during her visit to Cambridge in 1564, and Baker was one of the disputants in the divinity act then kept before her majesty (Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 199, 200). In 1565 some of the fellows of the college exhibited articles against Baker to Nicholas Bullingham, bishop of Lincoln, their visitor. In these the provost was charged with neglect of duty in divers particulars, and with favouring popery and papists. The bishop gave him certain injunctions, which, however, he disregarded. 'By them the provost was enjoined to destroy a great deal of popish stuff, as mass books, couchers, and grails, copes, vestments, candlesticks, crosses, pixes, paxes, and the brazen rood, which the provost did not perform, but preserved them in a secret corner.
In 1569 the fellows again complained of him to Bishop Grindal and Sir William Cecil, chancellor of the university; and ultimately the queen issued a special commission for the general visitation of the college. Thereupon Baker fled to Louvain, 'the great receptacle for the English popish clergy, and was formally deprived of the provostship 22 Feb. 1569-70. About the same period he lost all his other preferments. Fuller (Hist. of Univ. of Camb. ed. Prickett and Wright, 271) says: 'Even such as dislike his judgment will commend his integrity, that having much of the college money and plate in his custody (and more at his command, aiming to secure, not enrich himself), he faithfully resigned all; yea, carefully sent back the college horses which carried him to the sea side.'
He was living in 1601, and it is not improbable that he had then been permitted to return to England.
[Baker MS. xxx. 241; Cole MS. xiv. 28; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic, ed. Hardy, i. 528, iii. 604, 618, 683; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, iii. 119, 120; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 175, 176, 191, 199, 200, 203, 224, 225, 244-247, 293; Cooper's Athen. Cantab, ii. 322.]
BAKER, Sir RICHARD (1568–1645), religious and historical writer, was born about 1568. His father, John Baker, is stated to have been the elder son of Sir John Baker [q. v.], of Sisinghurst, near Cranbrook, Kent, who was chancellor of the exchequer and privy councillor in the reign of Henry VIII. His mother was Catherine, daughter of Reginald Scott, of Scots Hall, near Ashford, Kent. His father was disinherited, according to recent accounts, in favour of his younger brother, Richard, the head of the family in the historian's youth. This Richard Baker entertained Queen Elizabeth at the family seat of Sisinghurst in 1573, was soon afterwards knighted, acted as high sheriff of Kent in 1562 and 1582, and died on 27 May 1594. Care must be taken to distinguish between the uncle and nephew. Henry, a grandson of the elder Sir Richard Baker, and second cousin of the younger, was created a baronet in 1611.
Sir Richard Baker, the writer, became a commoner of Hart Hall (afterwards Hertford College), Oxford, in 1584, where he shared rooms with Sir Henry Wotton. He left Oxford without graduating, and studied law in London. His education was completed
