In October 1831, though his prospects at the bar were encouraging, he accepted from Earl Grey the post of solicitor-general of New South Wales. In 1836 he combined the office with that of attorney-general. He had a seat ex officio in the old legislative council. In 1848 he became, in addition, chairman of the newly established National School Board.
In 1856, when responsible government was conceded to New South Wales, Plunkett resigned office and retired on a pension, but immediately stood for election to the new assembly, and was elected for two out of three constituencies where he was nominated. Sydney alone rejected him. He elected to sit for Argyle; but next year he resigned, and was appointed to the upper chamber, where he was elected president. In 1858, owing to a collision with the prime minister, Charles Cowper, his name was removed from the committee of education, and he temporarily retired from public life; but in 1863 he joined the Martin ministry as leader in the upper chamber. In 1865, owing to the mediation of friends, he joined the Cowper ministry as attorney-general, and remained in office till the ministry fell.
During his later life Plunkett lived chiefly in Melbourne, staying in Sydney during the session of parliament. He died on 9 May 1869 at Burlington Terrace, East Melbourne. A public funeral at Sydney was accorded him on 15 May.
Plunkett was a zealous Roman catholic, and in his last years was secretary to the provincial council of the Roman catholic church at Melbourne. He was a vice-president of Sydney University.
[Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1869; Heaton's Australian Dates; Mennell's Australasian Biography.]
PLYMOUTH, Earls of. [See Fitzcharles, Charles, 1657?–1680; Windsor-Hickman, Thomas, first Earl, 1627–1687; Windsor, Henry, eighth Earl, 1768–1843.]
POCAHONTAS, afterwards Rolfe, Rebecca (1595–1617), American-Indian princess. [See under Rolfe, John, 1562–1621.]
POCKLINGTON, JOHN, D.D. (d. 1642), divine, received his education at Sidney College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1598. He was admitted a fellow of his college on the Blundell foundation in 1600, commenced M.A. in 1603, and proceeded to the degree of B.D. in 1610. While at Cambridge he held extremely high-church views. In January 1610 he was presented to the vicarage of Babergh, Suffolk. On 15 May 1611 the Earl of Kent, with the consent of Lord Harington, wrote to Sidney College to dispense with Pocklington's holding a small living with cure of souls (Addit. MS. 5847, f. 207). On 13 Jan. 1612 he was elected to a fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, which he resigned in 1618. He was created D.D. in 1621. He became rector of Yelden, Bedfordshire, vicar of Waresley, Huntingdonshire, and one of the chaplains to Charles I.
On 31 Oct. 1623 he was collated to the fourth stall in Peterborough cathedral, and on 25 Nov. 1626 to the prebend of Langford Ecclesia in the church of Lincoln. He was also appointed chaplain to the bishop of Lincoln. Soon afterwards he published 'Sunday no Sabbath. A Sermon preached before the Lord Bishop of Lincolne at his Lordshipa Visitation at Ampthill. . . Aug. 17, 1635,' London (two editions), 1636, 4to. This was followed by 'Altare Christianum; or the dead Vicars Plea. Wherein the Vicar of Gr[antham], being dead, yet speaketh, and pleadeth out of Antiquity against him that hath broken downe his Altar,' London, 1637, 4to. The arguments advanced in the latter work were answered in 'A Quench-Coale,' 1637. Pocklington was appointed a canon of the collegiate chapel of Windsor by patent on 18 Dec. 1639, and installed on 5 Jan. 1639-1640. On 14 Sept. 1640 he was at York, and wrote a long letter to Sir John Lambe, describing the movements of the royal army (Dom., Car. I, vol. cccclxvii. No. 61).
Among the king's pamphlets in the British Museum is 'The Petition and Articles exhibited in Parliament against John Pocklington, D.D., Parson of Yelden, Bedfordshire, Anno 1641,' London, 1641, 4to; reprinted in Howell's ' State Trials' (v. 747). He was charged with being 'a chief author and ringleader in all those [ritualistic] innovations which have of late flowed into the Church of England.' On 12 Feb. 1640-1 he was sentenced by the House of Lords never to come within the verge of the court, to be deprived of all his preferments, and to have his two books, 'Altare Christianum' and 'Sunday no Sabbath,' publicly burnt in the city of London and in each of the universities by the hand of the common executioner. When Pocklington was deprived of his preferments, William Bray, D.D., who had licensed his works, was enjoined to preach a recantation sermon in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster (Heylyn, Life of Laud, p. 441). Pocklington died on 14 Nov. 1642, and was buried on the 16th in the precincts of Peterborough cathedral.
A copy of Pocklington's will in the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 990, art. 20, f. 74)
