of publishing alike a report and a defence of the proceedings of the committee, White issued on 19 Nov. 1643 ‘The first Century of Scandalous Malignant Priests, made and admitted into Benefices by the Prelates’ (London, 4to). So indecent are the cases reported in this work that, according to Wood, White's own party dissuaded him ‘from putting out a second century,’ while another writer (Pierce, loc. cit.) says that the author ‘was ashamed to pursue his thoughts of any other.’ No second volume ever appeared.
With reference to the episcopacy, White advocated a ‘root and branch’ policy of extirpation, and two of his speeches on this subject were published, namely, that delivered in June 1641 on the introduction of the first bill for the exclusion of the bishops, and another concerning the trial of the twelve bishops, delivered on 17 Jan. 1641–2, on which day he was also appointed a member of the commons' committee to hear the bishops' defence in the House of Lords. He was also occasionally entrusted with the task of licensing publications, and was charged by the church party with being too ready to license works attacking the church (cf. Clarendon, Hist. of England, iii. 56). He gave evidence against Laud on two occasions—first along with (Sir) Richard Pepys the elder [q. v.] on 22 March 1643–4, with reference to Laud's removal of Edward Bagshaw from the readership of the Middle Temple; and secondly, on 5 July, as to Laud's attack upon himself when he appeared before him as counsel (‘Troubles and Trials’ in Laud's Works, iv. 132–3, 304–5). Towards the end of 1643 he published a book called ‘A Looking Glass for Cowardly Governors.’ He was also frequently deputed by the House of Commons to draft letters and impeachments. The first charter of the colony of Massachusetts was procured probably under his advice, and was perhaps actually drafted by him also. His name appears among the members of the company at meetings held before their embarkation, but he did not himself emigrate. He also drew up in October 1629 the articles agreed upon ‘between the Planters and Adventurers for the performance of what shall be determined,’ and was chosen one of the umpires to settle any disputes that might arise (Collections of the Massachusetts Hist. Soc. 4th ser. ii. 217–20, quoting Brook's Lives of the Puritans and Young's Chronicles, pp. 69, 74, 86, 101–2). White has sometimes been confused with John White, the Patriarch of Dorchester, who was also concerned in the settlement of Massachusetts, and is separately noticed below.
He died on 29 Jan. 1644–5, and was buried at the Temple Church, at the high altar, on the Middle Temple side, the members of the House of Commons attending his funeral in a body. The memorial inscription placed over him contained the following verses:
Here lyeth John, a burning, shining light,
His name, life, actions were all White
He was thrice married, his first wife being Janet, daughter of John ap Griffith Eynon of Jeffreston, Pembrokeshire (Pembr. MS. Pedigrees, 1685, penes Henry Owen, esq., F.S.A.) By his second wife, Winifred, daughter of Richard Blackwell of Bushey, Hertfordshire, he had four sons and five daughters, who survived him. His third wife, who survived him, was Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas Style of Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire (Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, ed. 1671, p. 179; cf. Foster, Alumni Oxon.)
Contemporaries describe White as a grave and learned lawyer, an opinion confirmed by his two published speeches. His hostility to the episcopal system was extreme, and after his death his enemies tried to damage his reputation by charging him with conjugal infidelity and open immorality (Mercurius Aulicus, 31 Jan. 1644–5).
His elder brother, Griffith, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Lort of Stackpole, was high sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1626, and proved one of the staunchest and most active parliamentarians in that county throughout the whole of the civil war (Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 396, ii. 4, 80–1, 85, 150, 164; Laws, Little England, pp. 321, 323, 325, 327, 335, 337).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 105, 144; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, 1822, ii. 361–5, iii. 23–34, 226; Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, i. 19; Fuller's Church Hist. 1845, vi. 67; Clarendon's Hist. of England, iii. 56; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 128; Commons' Journals, vol. ii.; Masson's Life of Milton, iii. 28–30, 268; Cambrian Journal, viii. 295, ix. 265; Williams's Eminent Welshmen, p. 517.]
WHITE, JOHN (1575–1648), called the
Patriarch of Dorchester, son of John White,
who held a lease under New College, Oxford,
by his wife Isabel, daughter of John Rawle
of Lichfield, was baptised at Stanton St. John, Oxfordshire, on 6 Jan. 1575. His elder
brother, Josias, was rector of Hornchurch,
Essex, 1614-23, and father of James, a
wealthy merchant of Boston, Massachusetts
(Essex Archaeol. Trans., new ser. iv. 317). In 1587 he entered Winchester school, whence
he was elected a fellow of New College in
1595 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 153).
