the middle of the chancel of the church. Having inherited his father's estate and bought property in Hampshire, he died comparatively rich (cf. his will registered in P. C. C. 322, Ruthen). By his wife Barbara, daughter of the Rev. Dr. More, who survived him, he had a son, Adolf (1628–1664), M.A. of Christ Church, Oxford, and a daughter, Frances, married to Nathaniel Naper or Napier.
There are some poems by Meetkerke in the Oxford collections of 1619 on the death of Anne, queen of James I, and of 1625 on the death of James himself and on the marriage of Charles I. The first-mentioned poem is in Latin; the two latter are in Hebrew.
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. 1852, p. 75; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 423; Burke's Landed Gentry, 5th ed.; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, iii. 572; Cussans's Hertfordshire, ‘Odsey Hundred,’ p. 166.]
MEGGOT or MEGGOTT, RICHARD (d. 1692), dean of Winchester, was a native of Surrey. He was admitted as a pensioner to Queens' College, Cambridge, on 4 March 1650, and graduated B.A. in 1653, M.A. in 1657, and D.D. in 1669. From 17 Nov. 1668 to 1686 he was vicar of Twickenham, being at the same time rector of St. Olave's, Southwark. He was appointed canon of Windsor on 18 July 1677, and on 9 Oct. 1679 he was installed dean of Winchester. As chaplain in ordinary he preached several times before the court at Whitehall, Hampton Court, and Windsor. James II, when at Winchester in September 1685, ‘lodged at the dean's (Dr. Meggot)’ (Evelyn, Diary, ii. 233). Evelyn heard several sermons by Meggot, and especially commends one preached on 7 March 1684 as an ‘incomparable sermon … on Hebrews xii. 15’ (ib. ii. 195, cf. ii. 7, 256, 262). He seems to have passed much of his time in London, and to have been on bad terms with the canons at Winchester.
Meggot died on 7 Dec. 1692, and was buried in Windsor Chapel. In the funeral sermon preached on him by Dean Sherlock at Twickenham on 10 Dec. 1692 the preacher said of Meggot: ‘He was abundantly furnished with all good learning, both for use and ornament. … He had true and clear notions of religion, and he was master of them. He knew why he believed anything, and was neither prejudiced nor imposed on by popular opinions. … He was an admirable preacher, not for noise and lungs, but for well-digested, useful, pious discourses, delivered with all that becoming gravity, seriousness, and a commanding elocution, as made them sink deep into the minds of his hearers.’ Ten of Meggot's sermons were printed together in 1699. Several of his letters are in Winchester Cathedral library.
Kneller twice painted Meggot's portrait. In one case it was engraved by White, in the other by Loggan. The latter engraving is described as ‘fine and very rare.’
[Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, iii. 258; Wilford's Memorials of Eminent Persons, p. 277; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl. iii. 22, 404; Luard's Grad. Cant. abridged, 1659–1823; Newcourt's Repert. Eccl. Lond. i. 758; Lysons's Environs of London, iii. 585; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 899, note, iv. 832; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Evans's Cat. Engraved Portraits, pp. 229, 276; information from Queens' College, Cambridge, and from the Dean of Winchester.]
MEGGOTT, JOHN (1714–1789), miser. [See Elwes.]
MEIDEL, CHRISTOPHER (fl. 1687–1708), quaker, a Norwegian by birth, was educated at Copenhagen. He came to England about 1683 as chaplain to Prince George of Denmark (Bevan), and was appointed minister of the Danish congregation in Wellclose Square, Ratcliffe, in 1687. He was soon troubled in his conscience by the fact that he ‘administered the sacrament to persons who were no way bettered thereby,’ and consequently he relinquished the charge. About 1696, he began preaching to an independent congregation in Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield, but after holding the post for some years he grew confirmed in his doubts, and eventually joined the quakers (Bevan says about 1699). At the time, he was living at Stratford, and supported his family by manual labour. On 24 Feb. 1701, Meidel took part in a notable dispute at Green's Coffee-house, Finch Lane, between Benjamin Keach [q. v.], a baptist, and Richard Claridge [q. v.] In November he accompanied Claridge on a series of meetings in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. In September 1705, they attended the burial of a quakeress, which took place in Barking churchyard (by direction of her son), and they protested that she, being unbaptised, or excommunicate, had no need of ceremonies. Meidel addressed a large crowd over her grave, but the vicar's son thrust him out of the churchyard. He again spoke to many hundreds ‘by the sign-post of the Anchor and Crow.’ The same year Meidel issued ‘An Address to my Neighbours and others in and about Stratford, near Bow, Essex, assembled to dance on the 1st of the 3rd month, called Mayday.’
Meidel was soon afterwards imprisoned. On 4 July 1706 he wrote from Chelmsford gaol ‘An Address to the Danish and Norwegian Lutheran Church in London.’ This is printed in a Danish translation by himself
