MS. E. Mus. 86. This manuscript in its original form contained seven portions, of which the first two were edited by the late W. W. Shirley for the Rolls Series in 1858. A list of the pieces contained in the remainder is given by Shirley, pp. lxxii–v; a considerable portion consists of notes on the council of Constance, which closely follow the acts printed by Mansi. In the ‘Conclusiones Wyccliff ter damnatæ,’ f. 110 b, four are added, which are expressly stated to have been drawn up by Netter.
Of Netter's other writings scarcely any seem to have survived. A short tract entitled ‘Rationes et Motiva et Reprobationes 43 articulorum Wiclefi et sectatoris Johannis Hus’ is printed in Blanciotti's edition of the ‘Doctrinale Fidei,’ iii. 1029 seq.; this treatise is preserved in Bodleian MS. 2714, O. C. f. 1., Magdalen College, Oxford, 4. f. 270, and in a manuscript which was in the library of the Lateran Canons at Padua (Oudin, Script. Eccl. iii. 2217). Bale and Villiers de Saint-Etienne give a list of over forty other works, some of which are perhaps really portions of the ‘Doctrinale.’ The list includes commentaries on various books of scripture and on a number of Aristotle's works; there are also the usual determinations, quæstiones, sermons and commentary on the sentences of Peter Lombard.
Among Netter's correspondents were John Luck, Thomas Rudborne [q. v.], and Conrad Tremonius, a German Carmelite, who had been with him in Poland (Dogiel, u.s.) and accompanied him to England. Bale gives the first words of most of the treatises which he specifies, but none of Netter's minor works would seem to have survived, unless the ‘Introductiones Naturalium’ ascribed to him is identical with the tract in Bodleian MS. 2593, f. 150, or with the ‘Notabilia bona et utilia de terris naturalibus’ in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS. 116, ff. 18–38. The tract ‘De divinatione ad principes’ is mentioned by Netter in a letter to Rudborne (Tanner). The editors of the Venice edition of 1571 state that they had not met with any of Netter's minor works, ‘though some at Venice say that they have seen his treatise “De Veritate Catholica.”’
[Most of our knowledge of Netter's life is derived from incidental statements in the Doctrinale Fidei Ecclesiæ, here quoted from Blanciotti's edition. There are a few references in the Proceedings of the Privy Council, where he is, strangely, called ‘John’ Walden. Thomas Gascoigne has some references to him in his Theological Dictionary (see Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Rogers, pp. 2, 11, 186). Other information is to be found in Leland's Comment. in Script. Brit. pp. 438–40; Bale's Heliades in Harleian MSS. 1819 ff. 66 b, 117 a, 197 b, 199 b, and 3838 ff. 35–7, 94–95, 203–4, and his Centuries, vii. 83; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 746–8; Villiers de Saint-Etienne's Bibl. Carmelitana, ii. 824–6, 833–42; Thevet's Pourtraits et Vies des Hommes Illustres, ed. 1584, pp. 154–7; Shirley's Preface to the Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. lxx–lxxviii. Lives are prefixed to the two Venice editions of the Doctrinale; that given by Blanciotti, I. ix–xvii., is the most complete account of Netter that has been published.]
NETTERVILLE, Sir JOHN, second Viscount Netterville of Dowth (d. 1659), was the eldest son of Nicholas, first viscount (d. 1654), by his first wife, Eleanor Bathe. He was early known as a champion of the Irish catholics, and was one of those recusants who on 16 Nov. 1632 petitioned Lord-deputy Wentworth to refrain from rigorously enforcing the Act of 2 Eliz. against them (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. x. pt. i.). In 1623 he had married Lady Elizabeth Weston, daughter of the Lord-treasurer Portland, and this gave his family a protector at court.
At the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, 23 Oct. 1641, Sir John Netterville had been for some time in command of a half-standing company of ninety-seven men, with which he joined Lord Moore at Drogheda on the 26th. He gave Moore rather more trouble than help, and it was believed that he attempted to excite the catholic townsmen against the garrison, and thus to make the town an easy prey to the Irish army. Detected, or at least distrusted, he withdrew to his own house in the neighbourhood. About the end of November, according to Dean Nicholas Bernard [q. v.], his father, Lord Netterville, boasted that he would take Drogheda in a day or two, and refused to let castaway English protestants enter the town. On 5 Feb. 1642 the House of Commons ordered the Irish government to remove Sir John Netterville from his command, as well as all who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, Clanricarde only excepted (Cal. of Clarendon State Papers, vol. i.) Lord Netterville was already in arms against the government, while professing loyalty to the king, and his eldest son trimmed between the English and Irish parties. But no country house was tenable under the circumstances and no neutrality possible; and Sir John took advantage of Ormonde's approach for the relief of Drogheda to make a show of standing well with the king if not with the puritan lords-justices. He accordingly went to the camp at Garristown, whence Ormonde sent him to Dublin, on 12 March 1641–2, and on his arrival he was shut up in the castle. He com-
