Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/225

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8vo), which contains many autobiographical details. He bequeathed the second edition to Brown, his publisher. It appeared in 1797, with a memoir by Bickerstaffe, Brown's successor. Wilcocks was also the author of 'An Account of some Subterraneous Apartments, with Etruscan Inscriptions, discovered at Civita Turchino in Italy,' published in 'Philosophical Transactions' in 1703, and reprinted in the second edition of Roman Conversations.' Some verses by him appeared in 'Carmina Quadragesimalia.' A portrait engraved by S. Phillips from a painting by Benjamin West was prefixed to the second edition of 'Roman Conversations.'

[Robinson's Merchant Taylors' School Reg. 1882, i. 313; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 15001714; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xii. 287; Welch's Alumni Westmonast. 1852, p. 31; Denne's Hist. of Rochester, 1817, pp. 179-81; Bloxam's Reg. of Magdalen College, 1879, vi. 120-7; Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd ser. iv. 320; Widmore's Hist. of Westminster Abbey, 1751, pp. 173, 225; Stanley's Hist. Mem. of Westminster Abbey, 1882, p. 476; Ann. Reg. 1761, i. 89; Chester's Westminster Abbey Reg. 1876, pp. 81, 312, 388, 389, 424. For the son, see Memoir prefixed to Roman Conversations, 1797; Welch's Alumni Westmonast. 1852, pp. 322, 323; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Gent. Mag. 1791, ii. 1237; Manning and Bray's Hist,. of Surrey, 1801, i. 467*; British Critic, 1793, ii. 74-81.]

E. I. C.

WILCOX, THOMAS (1549?–1608), puritan divine, born about 1549, was 'fellow or scholar in and before 1566 ' of St. John's College, Oxford (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714, iv. 1630). Wood says he found his name 'in the matricula of the university sub tit. S. Jo. Bapt. in the year 1564;' his name, however, does not occur in the university register of graduates. Upon leaving Oxford he became a 'very painful minister of God's Word' in Honey Lane, London, perhaps in connection with All Hallows' Church. In 1572 he took part in the composition of 'An Admonition to Parliament,' the document in which the puritan party in the church of England clearly declared their hostility to episcopacy and demanded a constitution without bishops. Bancroft (Survey, p. 42) names Gilbey, Sampson, Lever, Field, and Wilcox as the compilers of the 'Admonition,' with its accompanying 'View of Abuses' in the Prayer Book ; but Field and Wilcox were held responsible for it by the authorities, because they made an attempt to present it to parliament (Brook, Puritans, i. 319), and were committed to Newgate, 7 July1572. Archbishop Parker, having received a letter from the prisoners delivered by their wives charging him with cruelty, sent his chaplain Pearson to confer with them on 11 Sept. Brook (ib. ii. 185-90) prints the conference from manuscript authority. The prisoners acknowledge responsibility for the 'Admonition' and confess their desire for equality of ministers and other reforms. They also wrote a Latin letter to Burghley, dated 3 Sept., asking to be liberated. It is printed by Strype (Annals, II. ii. 482). On 20 Oct. 1572 they were brought before the lord mayor and court of aldermen, charged under the Act of Uniformity, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. They were visited by friends and sympathisers in their confinement. Sandys, bishop of London, writing to Burghley, 5 Aug. 1573, complains that 'the city will never be quiet until these authors of sedition, who are now esteemed as gods, as Field, Wilcox, Cartwright, and others, be far removed. . . . The people resort unto them as in popery they were wont to run on pilgrimage.' At the end of the year's imprisonment they petitioned the council for release, and appealed also to the Earl of Leicester. Wilcox was given his liberty before the end of 1573, but deprived of his position in Honey Lane. He preached where he could, and for the greatest part of ten years very frequently at Bovington in Hertfordshire. In 1577 he was before Aylmer, bishop of London, for contumacy. The bishop expressed an opinion that he might be usefully employed in the north (Strype, Parker, ii. 239). In 1581 he was convened before the ecclesiastical courts, and again in 1591, when he suffered a term of imprisonment. He died in 1608 in the fifty-ninth year of his age.

During the latter part of his life Wilcox enjoyed a great reputation as an adviser of those perplexed in conscience, and for his knowledge of casuistical divinity. He maintained a large correspondence, of which only a small part found its way into print. Brook prints two letters to Anthony Gilbey, which throw light on the history of the religious troubles of 1573- 1574, and mentions that Sir Peter Wentworth [q. v.] was one of Wilcox's intimates.

Wilcox was author of: 1. 'A Summarie and Short Meditations touching Certaine Points of Christian Religion,' London, 1579, 8vo. 2. 'Concordance or Table containing the Principal Words and Matters which are comprehended in the New Testament,' London, 1579, 8vo. 3. 'The Unfoldinge of Sundrie Untruthes and Absurde Propositions propounded by Banister, a favourer