HESKETH, ROGER, D.D. (1643–1715), Roman catholic controversialist, born in 1643, was a younger son of Gabriel Hesketh, gentleman, of Whitehill, Goosnargh, Lancashire, by Ann, daughter of Robert Simpson of Barker in Goosnargh. He received his education in the English College at Lisbon, was ordained priest and made procurator of the college in 1667, and confessarius in 1672. He began to teach philosophy in January 1675–6, and divinity in September 1677. On 6 Dec. 1678 he was appointed vice-president, and he held that office till 1686, when he was recalled to England by Bishop Leyburne. He left Lisbon on 29 April in that year, being then a doctor of divinity. When Dr. Watkinson desired to resign the presidency of the college at Lisbon, Hesketh was nominated his successor; but Watkinson was induced to retain the presidency. In 1694 Hesketh was elected a capitular, and in 1710 he assisted at the general chapter. He served the mission in Lincolnshire, probably at Hainton, the seat of the Heneage family, and died in April 1715, aged 71.
He wrote a treatise on transubstantiation, one of the numerous anonymous tracts published in the reign of James II. Dodd says it was written in answer to John Patrick, M.A., preacher at the Charterhouse, and he adds that a reply to Hesketh's treatise was published by Edward Bernard, D.D. [q. v.]
[Information from Joseph Gillow, esq.; Kirk's MS. Biog. Collections, No. 23, quoted in Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Catholic Mag. and Review (1835), vi. 105; Dodd's Certamen Utriusque Ecclesiæ, pp. 16, 17; Fishwick's Parochial Chapelry of Goosnargh, pp. 160, 162*.]
HESKETH or HASKET, THOMAS (1561–1613), botanist, brother of Richard Hesketh [q. v.], was born at Martholme Hall, Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1561. He practised as a physician and surgeon at Clitheroe, where he died 7 Dec. 1613. He seems to have been a correspondent of Gerard, if not also of Johnson and Parkinson, the latter speaking of him as ‘a painefull chirurgion and simplist.’
[Palatine Note-book, 1885, v. 7; Pulteney's Biog. Sketches of Botany, i. 124; Gerard's Herbal, ed. Johnson, pp. 241, 780, 1629, &c.; Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum, pp. 766, 1015, &c.]
HESKYNS or HESKIN, THOMAS, D.D. (fl. 1566), Roman catholic divine, was a native of Heskin, in the parish of Eccleston, Lancashire. After studying for twelve years at Oxford, he removed to Cambridge, where he commenced M.A. in 1540, being then a priest and a fellow of Clare Hall. He graduated B.D. at Cambridge in 1548. When it was proposed in 1549 to suppress Clare Hall in order to unite it to Trinity Hall, Heskyns signed a paper stating that as an obedient subject to the king he consented to the dissolution, though it was done contrary to his oath to the college. He was rector of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire, from 1551 to 1556, and was created D.D. in 1557. On 18 Oct. 1558 he was admitted to the chancellorship of the church of Sarum by the mandate of Cardinal Pole (Lansdowne MS. 980, f. 261), and on 16 Nov. the same year he became vicar of Brixworth, Northamptonshire, on his own petition, that benefice being in his gift as chancellor of Sarum. In August 1559 he was deprived of all his preferments for refusing to swear to the queen's supremacy. Thereupon he withdrew to Flanders, entered the Dominican order, and became confessor to some English Dominican nuns at Bergen-op-Zoom, whither they had been permitted to retire from England in the first year of Elizabeth's reign. Some years later Heskyns secretly returned to this country, for in 1565 Dr. Philip Baker [q. v.], provost of King's College, Cambridge, was charged with having entertained him. It was stated that Heskyns had been brought to Baker's table at Cambridge in the dark, and conveyed away again in the like manner (Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, ii. 225). He was much esteemed by the catholics on account of his zeal for their cause. A portrait of him on wood is prefixed to the Antwerp edition of his ‘Parliament of Chryste.’ It is not known when or where he died.
He wrote ‘The Parliament of Chryste, avouching and declaring the enacted and receaved Trueth of the Presence of his Bodie and Bloode in the Blessed Sacrament, and of other Articles concerning the same, impugned in a wicked Sermon by M. Juel,’ Brussels, 1565, fol., Antwerp, 1566, fol. Two replies to this work were published by William Fulke [q. v.] in 1579, one being entitled ‘Heskins' Parliament Repealed.’
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 419; Addit. MSS. 5808 f. 112, 5871 ff. 107, 154; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 765; Lamb's Cambridge Documents, pp. 113, 223; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 525; Strype's Works (general index); Gough's Index to Parker Soc. Publications; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1057, 1059, 1148; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), ii. 652; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, v. 262, 263; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, p. 35.]
