return, and on 18 May his election was annulled, and he thought it best to fly from England. In 1662 Corbet, in company with Barkstead and Okey, was seized by Sir George Downing in Holland, and shipped over to England (Heath, Chronicle, p. 842). As Corbet, like his companions, had been excluded from the act of indemnity, it was sufficient to prove his identity to obtain a sentence of death against him. He was executed on 19 April 1662 (Heath, Register). In his dying speech Corbet protested that a sense of public duty, not self-interest, had been the inspiring motive of his political life. ‘When I was first called to serve in parliament I had an estate; I spent it in the service of the parliament. I never bought any king's or bishop's lands; I thought I had enough, at least I was content with it; that I might serve God and my country was that I aimed at.’
[Ludlow's Memoirs, 1751; Heath's Chronicle, 1663; Kennet's Register; Noble's Lives of the Regicides. A list of contemporary pamphlets dealing with the trial and execution of Corbet is appended to the life of John Barkstead in vol. iii.]
CORBET, REGINALD (d. 1566), judge, second son of Sir Robert Corbet, knight, of Moreton Corbet, Shropshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir H. Vernon, knight, of Haddon, was elected reader at the Middle Temple in the autumn of 1551, though he did not perform the duties of the post until the following Lent, received a serjeant's writ on 27 Oct. 1558, which was renewed on 12 Dec., Queen Mary having died in the meantime, and took the degree on 19 April 1559. On 16 Oct. following he was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the queen's bench. He died in 1566. His son Richard married Anne, daughter of Lord Chancellor Bromley, and their son, John, was created a baronet in 1627 [see Corbet, Sir John].
[Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 74; Dugdale's Orig. 217, Chron. Ser. 90, 92; Plowden's Reports, p. 356; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
CORBET, RICHARD (1582–1635), bishop successively of Oxford and Norwich, and poet, born in 1582, was son of Vincent Corbet, a gardener or nurseryman of Ewell, Surrey. He was educated at Westminster School, whence he proceeded to Broadgates Hall, afterwards Pembroke College, Oxford, in Lent term 1597–8. In 1598 he was elected a student of Christ Church, and proceeded B.A. on 20 June 1602 and M.A. on 9 June 1605. Wood says that in his young days he was ‘esteemed one of the most celebrated wits in the university, as his poems, jests, romantic fancies, and exploits, which he made and perform'd extempore, shew'd.’ Aubrey says that ‘he was a very handsome man, but something apt to abuse, and a coward.’ He took holy orders, and his quaint wit in the pulpit recommended him to all ‘ingenious men.’ In 1612, while proctor of the university and senior student of Christ Church, he pronounced funeral orations at Oxford on Prince Henry and Sir Thomas Bodley; the latter was published in 1613. Corbet was for some years vicar of Cassington, Oxfordshire, and James I made him one of the royal chaplains in consideration of his ‘fine fancy and preaching.’ When preaching before the king at Woodstock on one occasion Corbet broke down, and a university wag wrote a poem, which was very popular, describing the awkward misadventure (Wit Restor'd, 1658). In 1616 he was recommended for election to the projected Chelsea College, and on 8 May 1617 he was admitted B.D. at Oxford. In 1618 he made a tour in France, which he humorously described in an epistle to his friend Sir Thomas Aylesbury, and in 1619 the death of his father left him a little landed property in the city of London. He was early in 1620 appointed to the prebend of Bedminster Secunda in the cathedral of Salisbury, which he resigned on 10 June 1631 (cf. Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 656), and to the vicarage of Stewkley, Berkshire (1620), which he held till his death. On 24 June 1620 he was installed dean of Christ Church, at the early age of thirty-seven, and was then friendly with the powerful Duke of Buckingham. On 9 Oct. 1628, when the deanery was required by the Earl of Dorset for Brian Duppa [q. v.], Corbet was elected to the vacant see of Oxford, and was translated to the see of Norwich on 7 May 1632. He preached before Charles I at Newmarket on 9 March 1633–4 (Strafford Papers, i. 221), and contributed 400l. to the rebuilding of St. Paul's in 1634. Corbet was strongly opposed to the puritans, and frequently admonished his clergy for puritan practices. On 26 Dec. 1634 he turned the Walloon congregation out of the bishop's chapel, which had been lent to them for their services since 1619. He died at Norwich on 28 July 1635, and was buried in his cathedral.
Throughout his life Corbet was famed for his conviviality. Stories are told of his merrymaking in London taverns in youth in company with Ben Jonson and other well-known dramatists, and of the practical jokes he played at Oxford when well advanced in years. It is stated that after becoming a doctor of divinity he put on a leathern jerkin and sang ballads at Abingdon Cross. When bishop he ‘would sometimes,’ writes Aubrey, ‘take the
