on the ground that, if the prizes of the lottery were taken away, few would care to acquire learning. By his final vote on the Grand Remonstrance he threw in his lot with the episcopal royalist party. It was the vote, not of a statesman, but of a student, anxious to find some middle term between the rule of Laud and the rule of a Scottish presbytery, and attacking the party which at any moment seemed likely to acquire undue predominance.
Such a man is prone to overestimate the amount of consistency which lies at the bottom of almost all changes of opinion honestly made. He prepared for publication an edition of his speeches with explanatory comments of his own. On 4 Feb. the House of Commons ordered the book to be burnt and himself to be sent to the Tower. He remained a prisoner till the 11th.
Dering's imprisonment probably threw him more decidedly on the king's side than he had intended. On 25 March he took a leading part at the Maidstone assizes in getting up a petition from the grand jury in favour of episcopacy and the prayer-book. On this he was impeached by the commons, but he contrived to escape, and at the opening of the civil war raised a regiment of cavalry for the king.
Dering was even less a soldier than he was a statesman. He was in bad health, and the talk of the camp probably disgusted him. Even before the battle of Edgehill he inquired on what terms he might be allowed to submit to parliament. Nothing came of the negotiation, but before the opening of the campaign of 1643 he threw up his commission. It is said that he asked the king in vain to give him the deanery of Canterbury. Every month that passed must have made his position at Oxford more painful. Not only had primitive episcopacy vanished, but Charles in September made a cessation with the confederate catholics of Ireland, and negotiations were subsequently opened with the object of bringing Irish catholic soldiers into England. On 30 Jan. 1644 parliament issued a declaration offering pardon to those who had taken up arms against them if they would take the covenant and pay a composition for the restoration of their sequestered estates. Dering was the first to accept the terms, and he had leave to go home. The composition was settled at 1,000l. on 27 July; but Dering, who had been kept out of his property till his payment had been arranged, was already beyond parliamentary jurisdiction. He died on 22 June, having suffered much from poverty after his return. His position at the end of his life may be best illustrated from a ‘Discourse on Sacrifice’ which was published by him in June 1644, though it was written in the summer of 1640. In issuing it to the world he declares that he wishes for peace and for the return of the king to his parliament. ‘In the meantime,’ he adds, ‘I dare wish that he would make less value of such men—both lay and clergy—who, by running on the Canterbury pace, have made our breaches so wide, and take less delight in the specious way of cathedral devotions.’ These words exhibit Dering as a fair representative of that important part of the nation which set itself against extreme courses, though it was unable to embody its desires in any practically working scheme.
Dering's published works are: 1. ‘The Four Cardinal Virtues of a Carmelite Friar,’ 1641. 2. ‘Four Speeches made by Sir E. Dering,’ 1641 (the pamphlet thus headed contains only three speeches, the fourth being published separately). 3. ‘A most worthy Speech … concerning the Liturgy,’ 1642. 4. ‘A Collection of Speeches made by Sir E. Dering on Matters of Religion,’ 1642. 5. ‘A Declaration by Sir E. Dering,’ 1644. 6. ‘A Discourse of Proper Sacrifice,’ 1644.
[The above account is founded on Mr. Bruce's preface to Proceedings in Kent, published by the Camden Society, and upon documents referred to either there or in Gardiner's Hist. of England, 1603–1642, ix. 382, 388, x. 37, 72, 75, 181. Compare Hasted's History of Kent, iii. 229.]
DERING, HENEAGE, LL.D. (1665–1750), antiquary and divine, was the eldest son of Christopher Dering of Wickins in Charing parish, Kent, who was born on 8 Aug. 1625, died in his son's chambers in the Inner Temple 18 Dec. 1693, and was buried on 23 Dec. in Charing church, in the chapel of the Brents, from whom the estate of Wickins had come to the Derings by marriage. Christopher Dering, who was secretary to Heneage Finch, chancellor of England and earl of Nottingham, married, on 11 June 1663, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas Spackman of Wiltshire, by Joan, daughter and heiress of Francis Kennerley of Lincolnshire, who died at Albury, Surrey, on 19 April 1724, aged 89, and was buried by her husband in Brent's chapel, Charing, on 27 April. Their eldest son was born in St. Bride's parish, London, on 7 Feb. 1664–5, and was called Heneage in honour of his father's friend and patron, who condescended to be his godfather. John Sharp, afterwards archbishop of York, was Finch's chaplain, and the friend of Finch's secretary, a circumstance which many years later insured Heneage Dering's advancement in the church. Heneage was sent to a school
