Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Puleston, Hamlet

910637Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 47 — Puleston, Hamlet1896Gerald le Grys Norgate

PULESTON or PULISTON, HAMLET (1632–1662), political writer, born at Old Alresford, Hampshire, in 1632, was the son of Richard Puleston, and nephew of John Puleston [q. v.] Hamlet's father was born in 1591 at Burcott in Oxfordshire, but was descended from a Flintshire family; he graduated from Hart Hall, Oxford, B.A. in 1611, M.A. in 1613, B.D. in 1620, and D.D. in 1627; obtained a fellowship at Wadham, which he resigned in 1619; was prebendary of Winchester in 1611–16, rector successively of Leckford, Hampshire (1616), Kingworthy (1618), and Abbotsworthy; and was moderator of philosophy in 1614, and humanity lecturer in 1616 at Oxford (see Gardiner, Wadham Register, p. 10; Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, and Wood). Hamlet, admitted scholar of Wadham on 20 Aug. 1647, graduated B.A. on 23 May 1650, and M.A. on 25 April 1653. He at first declined to subscribe to the ordinances of the parliamentary visitors (Wood, Antiquities of Oxford University, ed. Gutch, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 703), but subsequently became a fellow of Jesus, and was nominated moderator dialecticæ on 19 May 1656. Wood says also that he became ‘a preacher in those parts,’ presumably Oxfordshire. He ultimately settled in London, where he died at the beginning of 1662 ‘in a poor condition and in an obscure house.’ Puleston published in 1660 ‘Monarchiæ Britannicæ singularis Protectio; or a brief historical Essay tending to prove God's especial providence over the British Monarchy.’ It was reissued as the ‘Epitome Monarchiæ Britannicæ … wherein many remarkable observations on the civil wars of England, and General Monk's Politique Transactions in reducing the Nation to a firm Union, for the resettlement of his Majesty, are clearly discovered,’ 1663, 4to.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses (Bliss), iii. 544, iv. 721, and Fasti, ii. 160, 176; Burrows's Reg. Parl. Visitors, pp. 505, 560; Gardiner's Wadham Register, pp. 166–7; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]

G. Le G. N.