Wagstaffe [q. v.] and to Dr. William Wagstaffe [q. v.] Thomas was educated at the Charterhouse, whence he passed in Lent term 1660 to New Inn Hall, Oxford, graduating B.A. on 15 Oct. 1664, M.A. on 20 June 1667. Just two years after, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Hackett of Lichfield, and in the same year priest by Bishop Henshaw of Peterborough, upon his institution to the benefice of Martinsthorpe. He afterwards became chaplain to Sir Richard Temple (1634–1697) [q. v.], and was made curate of Stowe. In 1684 he was preferred to the chancellorship of Lichfield Cathedral and to the prebend of Alderwas in the same cathedral, by James II, the bishop (Wood) being incapacitated through his suspension from making the appointment. In the same year, also at the presentation of the king as patron of the rectory of St. Gabriel Fenchurch, London, which after the great fire had been united with the neighbouring parish of St. Margaret Pattens, he was appointed first rector of the joint benefice. Of this and of his cathedral stall he was deprived at the revolution, as he refused to take the new oaths. For some time he made his living by practising as a physician, still wearing his canonical habit. As such he prescribed for Archbishop Sancroft and for Bishop Turner of Ely. With the archbishop he spent some time before his death at Fressingfield in Suffolk, whither he had retired from Lambeth Palace, after his deprivation, to a small estate of his own. Wagstaffe therefore was able to give some account of the archbishop's illness and death, which he did in ‘A Letter out of Suffolk’ (London, 1694, 4to; reprinted in vol. iii. of ‘Somers's Tracts,’ 1751, 4to). He must have been successful in his new profession, for, encouraged by him, his future son-in-law, Dr. William Wagstaffe [q. v.], came up to London and eventually secured the appointment of physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
In 1693 the nonjurors took steps to continue a succession of their bishops under the Suffragan Bishops Act of Henry VIII, which had not been in force since the reign of Queen Elizabeth (it had been contemplated to make use of it during the Commonwealth, when the number of the bishops was reduced to about nine, but the Restoration made such a step needless). Dr. George Hickes [q. v.] went over to St. Germain in 1693 with a nominal list of most of the nonjurors, from which the king selected the names of Hickes himself and Wagstaffe for bishops. As the nonjurors held that James was de jure king, and Lloyd, whose suffragans the new bishops were to be, though deprived, was bishop of Norwich, Sancroft still being regarded as primate, it was thought that the conditions of the act were duly complied with. Before giving his consent to this scheme James had secured the approval of Innocent XII, of Harlay, archbishop of Paris, and of Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. Wagstaffe therefore was nominated bishop of Ipswich, and Hickes of Thetford, both in the diocese of Norwich. Their consecrations took place on the feast of St. Matthias, 24 Feb. 1694, at the house of the Rev. Mr. Giffard at Southgate in the parish of Enfield, near London, which apparently was occupied by White, the deprived bishop of Peterborough. A third bishop—Lloyd of Norwich taking the lead—took part in the ceremony, viz. Turner, deprived of Ely. The service, doubtless for prudential reasons, was quite private, and the consecrations were for a long time unknown to some of the leading nonjurors. Even Hearne, who at Oxford was in frequent communication with Hickes and Wagstaffe, knew nothing of these consecrations as late as 1732. The only persons present were, besides the bishops, Lord Clarendon and a notary named Douglas. Wagstaffe joined with the former in attesting Hickes's deed of consecration, Hickes doing a like service for him. There is no record of Wagstaffe performing any episcopal duties. There were no consecrations during his lifetime, nor does it appear that he ordained any of the few admitted to holy orders during that time. Apparently he passed much of the rest of his days in Warwickshire, though he was present when holy communion was given to Kettlewell on his deathbed in London in 1695; and in the following year, after a warrant for his apprehension, he appeared with Bishop Thomas Ken [q. v.] and three more of the deprived bishops, besides others, before the privy council, on account of his share in the ‘charitable recommendation’ on behalf of the ‘extreme want’ of the nonjuring clergy and their families. He was released, with the others, on 23 May. The ‘Post Boy’ of 23–5 Oct. 1712 thus records his death: ‘On Friday the 17th instant died the Reverend Dr. Wagstaffe, at his house at Binley, near Coventry. He was a person of extraordinary judgment, exemplary piety, and unusual learning; and had he not had the misfortune to dissent from the established government by not taking the oaths, as he had all the qualities of a great divine, and a governor of the church, so he would have filled deservedly some of the highest stations in it.’
Wagstaffe was the author of several pamphlets, the best known being his ‘Vindication of King Charles the Martyr, proving
