and schoolmen, so judicious in making use of his readings, that at length he was found to be no longer a soldier but a commander-in-chief of the spiritual warfare, especially when he became a bishop and carried prelature in his very aspect.' His 'True Difference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion, where the Princes lawful power to command and bear the sword are defended against the Pope's censure and Jesuits' sophisms in their Apology and Defence of English Catholics; also a Demonstration that the Things reformed in the Church of England by the Laws of the Realm are truly Catholic against the Catholic Rhemish Testament' (Oxford, 1585), is a powerful answer to Dr. William Allen's 'Defence of English Catholics,' but otherwise shows want of judgment. Elizabeth had given him the task in view of her intended aid to protestant Holland; and, as was swiftly perceived by nonconformists, Bilson (in Wood's words) 'gave strange liberty in many cases, especially concerning religion, for subjects to cast off their obedience.' Historically, it is unquestionable that whilst this 'True Difference' served the queen's present purpose, it contributed more than any other to the humiliation, ruin, and death of Charles I. The weapons forged to beat back the king of Spain were used against the Stuart.
His 'Perpetual Government of Christ his Church' (1593), and his 'Effect of certain Sermons concerning the Full Redemption of Mankind by the Death and Blood of Christ Jesus' (1599), are superfluously learned and unattractive. His magnum opus was also assigned him by Elizabeth, who commanded him to answer Henry Jacob. It is entitled 'Survey of Christ's Sufferings and Descent into Hell,' and is, like Bilson's other works, halting in its logic and commonplace in its proofs. 'At length,' concludes Wood, 'after he had gone through many employments and had lived in continual drudgery as 'twere, for the public good, he surrendered up his pious soul, 18 June 1616,' and on the same date he was interred in Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, John Dunbar (a Scottish poet) furnishes the only contemporary praise of him in an epigram which the Oxford historian deigns to allow might have been inscribed for his epitaph. It runs thus:—
Ad Thomam Bilsonum, episcopum l'intoniensem.
Castalidum commune decus, dignissime præsul
Bilsone æternis oommemorande modis:
Quam valide adversus Christi inperterritus hostes
Bella geras, libri sunt monumenta tui.
His Hydræ fidei quotquot capita alta resurgunt,
Tu novus Alcides tot resecare soles.
Anthony à Wood possessed various manuscripts of his—Orationes, Carmina Varia, &c., &c. Besides 'occasional' sermons, there is among the Lambeth MSS. Bilson's 'Letter on the Election of Warden of Winchester and New College' (943, f. 149). There is also a 'Letter to the Lord Treasurer soliciting his Interest for the Bishoprick of Worcester' in Strype's 'Annals of the Reformation,' iv. 227, and there are letters of Bishop Bilson at Hatfield. Letters of administration were granted to his relict Anne on 25 June 1616. The baptism of a grandson on 5 Dec. 1616 is entered in Westminster Abbey Registers.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 169-71; Chester's Westminster Abbey Reg. 113; Bodleian Wood MSS.; Lambeth MSS.; Hatfield MSS.; Bilson's books.]
BINCKES, WILLIAM (d. 1712), dean of Lichfield, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1674, was elected to a fellowship at Peterhouse, and took the degree of M.A. in 1678. He was instituted to the prebend of Nassington, in the church of Lincoln, 2 May 1683, and to that of Basset Parva, in the church of Lichfield, 15 July 1697. In 1699 he took the degree of D.D. On 30 Jan. 1701, being then proctor of the diocese of Lichfield, he preached before the lower house of convocation a sermon on the martyrdom of Charles I, in which he drew a parallel between it and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, maintaining that having regard to the superior dignity of a king of England in actual possession of his crown as compared with one who was merely an uncrowned king of the Jews, and moreover disclaimed temporal sovereignty, the execution at Whitehall was an act of greater enormity than was committed at Calvary. The sermon having been printed was brought to the notice of the House of Lords, and a suggestion was made that it should be publicly burned. The peers, however, contented themselves with resolving that it contained 'several expressions that give just scandal and offence to all christian people.' In 1703 he was installed dean of Lichfield (19 June). In 1705 he was appointed prolocutor to convocation. He died 19 June 1712, and was buried at Leamington, of which place he had been vicar. Dean Binckes built the existing deanery at Lichfield. He published his sermons between 1702 and 1716.
[Grad. Cantab.; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 564, 600, ii. 193; Allibone's Dict. of British and American Authors; Parl. Hist. vi. 22, 23; Harwood's Lichfield, 186; Shaw's Staffordshire, i. 289.]
