Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Northbrooke, John
NORTHBROOKE, JOHN (fl. 1570), preacher and writer against plays, born in Devonshire (Poore Man's Garden, Epistle), was one of the first ministers ordained by Gilbert Berkeley, Queen Elizabeth's bishop of Bath and Wells. He is stated by Tanner, who refers to Lewis Evans's translation of the ‘Tabulæ Hæreseon’ of the Bishop of Roermund (Antwerp, 1565), to have been for some time in the prison of the Bishop of Exeter. In 1568 he was ‘minister and preacher of the word of God’ at St. Mary de Redcliffe, Bristol. In the epistle dedicatory of his first book he gives as his third reason for publishing it that one John Blackeall, born in Exeter, while doing penance at Paul's Cross for various offences detected by Northbrooke's instrumentality, uttered ‘against me many foule and sclaunderous reportes.’ Northbrooke had in consequence been summoned to town by the queen's commissioners, but before he could arrive Blackeall ‘stole awaie’ from the Marshalsea, in which he was confined. In 1571 Northbrooke was procurator for the Bristol clergy in the synod at London. Tanner thinks he was the John Northbrock presented by Queen Elizabeth to the vicarage of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in 1575, and suggests that he was the John Northbrooke who was presented to Walton, in the diocese of Wells, 7 Oct. 1570 and who resigned in August 1577 (cf. Weaver, Somerset Incumbents, p. 298). In 1579 he was apparently residing at Henbury, near Bristol.
He was author of: 1. ‘Spiritus est Vicarius Christi in Terra. A breefe and pithie summe of the Christian Faith, made in fourme of Confession, with a Confutation of the Papistes Objections and Argumentes in sundry Pointes of Religion, repugnant to the Christian Faith: made by John Northbrooke, Minister and a Preacher of the Worde of God,’ b.l., London, 1571, 4to; 1582, 8vo, ‘newly corrected and amended.’ The dedicatory letter to Gilbert Berkeley contains some autobiographical details. 2. ‘Spiritus est Vicarius Christi in Terra. The Poore Mans Garden, wherein are Flowers of the Scriptures, and Doctours, very necessary and profitable for the simple and ignoraunt people to read: truely collected and diligently gathered together, by John Northbrooke, Minister and Preacher of the Worde of God. And nowe newly corrected and largely augmented by the former Aucthour,’ b.l., London, 1573, 8vo. This was apparently not the first edition. There were other editions in 1580 and 1606. The ‘Epistle’ by Northbrooke is addressed to the ‘Bishop of Excester.’ An ‘Epistle to the Reader’ is signed ‘Thomas Knel, Ju.,’ in 1573, ‘T. Knell’ in 1580. Both 1 and 2 are written against Thomas Harding (1516–1572) [q. v.] 3. ‘Spiritus est Vicarius Christi in Terra. A Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, vaine Playes, or Enterluds, with other idle Pastimes, &c., commonly used on the Sabboth Day, are reproved by the Authoritie of the Word of God and auntient writers. Made Dialoguewise by John Northbrooke, Minister and Preacher of the Word of God,’ London, b.l., 1579, 4to, and again, 1579, 4to. The ‘Address to the Reader’ is dated ‘from Henbury.’ There are occasional scraps of verse in the volume. This tract is important as ‘the earliest separate and systematic attack’ upon dramatic performances in England. It was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1577. It contains the first mention by name of the playhouses the Theatre and Curtain, and witnesses to the great variety of topics already dealt with on the stage. J. P. Collier in 1843 edited it for the Shakespeare Society, with an introduction.
[J. P. Collier's Introduction to the Treatise against Dicing, &c.; Strype's Annals, II. i. 145–7; Tanner's Bibliotheca; Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica, p. 288; Collier's Poetical Decameron, ii. 231; Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry, i. 326, ii. 336, iii. 83; Collier's Bibliographical and Critical Account, &c., ii. 55; Atkyns's Gloucestershire, 2nd edit. p. 140; Hunter's Chorus Vatum, i. 467 (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 24487.)]