Rogers also published ‘An Answere vnto a wicked & infamous Libel made by Christopher Vitel,’ 1579. Another opponent was John Knewstub, who preached a sermon against Niclaes at ‘Paules Crosse’ on Good Friday, 1576. He published: ‘A Confutation of monstrous and horrible Heresies taught by H. N.,’ London, 1579. ‘A Confutation of Certaine Articles deliuered vnto the Familye of Loue. … By William Wilkinson, Maister of Artes, and Student of Divinitye,’ was published London, 1579. ‘The Description and Confutation of mysticall Antichrist the Familists, who in a mystery, as God, sitteth in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he is God’ (Cambridge), has no date. Niclaes was also attacked by Thomas Rogers in ‘The Faith, Doctrine, and Religion professed and protected in the Realm of England, and Dominions of the same: Expressed in 39 Articles, &c.’ Cambridge, 1607 (reprinted by the Parker Society as ‘The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England,’ 1854). Henry Ainsworth wrote ‘An Epistle sent vnto Two daughters of [the town of] Warwick, from H. N., the oldest Father of the Familie of Love,’ Amsterdam, 1608. John Etherington published (London, 1645) ‘A Brief Discovery of the Blasphemous Doctrine of Familisme, first conceived and brought forth into the World by one Henry Nicolas of the Low Countries of Germany about an hundred years ago; and now very boldly taught by one Mr. Randall and sundry others.’ Etherington was formerly a leader among the Familists (see The White Wolf, a sermon preached by Stephen Denison at Paul's Cross, London, 1627). ‘A Survey of the Spirituall Antichrist, opening the Secrets of Familisme and Antinomianisme in the Anti-Christian Doctrine of John Saltmarsh and Will. Del, the present Preachers of the Army now in England, and of Robert Town, &c.’ was published by Samuel Rutherford [q. v.], London, 1648.
[The principal sources of information for Niclaes's life are three manuscripts preserved in the library of the Society of Dutch Authors at Leyden. 1. Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften, &c., printed by Izaäk Enschedé, Haarlem, 1716; portions also translated in Max Rooses's Christophe Plantin, pp. 393–400. 2. Ordo Sacerdotis. De Ordeningen des priesterlicken states in dem Hüsgesinne der Lieften, &c. 3. Acta H. N. De Gescheften H. N. vnde etlicke hemmelsche Werckinge des Heren vnd Godes, &c. These were freely used by Dr. Nippold in his Heinrich Niclaes und das Haus der Liebe, published in the Zeitschrift für die historische Theologie, 1862, pp. 323–94. A careful bibliography of works, then known, was published by J. H. Hessels in Notes and Queries, October and November 1869, pp. 356, 404, 430. To authorities already named may be added: Max Rooses's Christophe Plantin, imprimeur anversois, Antwerp, 1882, pp. 61 et seq; Tiele's Christophe Plantin et le sectaire mystique, Henrik Niclaes, Le Bibliophile Belge, 1868, pp. 121–9; Mosheim's Eccles. Hist., Murdock's translation, ed. Hastings, Boston U.S.A. 1892, bk. iv. cent. XVI. sect. 3, pt. ii. chap. 3, pp. 220–21; Gottfried Arnold's Kirchen und Ketzer Hist. Th. ii. Buch xvi. cap. xxi. 36; De Ræmond's L'Histoire de la Naissance … de l'Hérésie de ce Sièçle, Paris, 1610, p. 217; Cat. van de Bibliot. der Maatsch. Nederl. Letterkunde, Leiden, 1847, i. 26, 216; Jundt's Histoire du Panthéisme Populaire au moyen age, &c. pp. 200–2; Blunt's Dictionary of Sects, pp. 158–60; Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, i. 28, iii. 9; Index to Publications of the Parker Society, pp. 556, 557; Pagitt's Heresiography, pp. 105–16; Camden's Annals, p. 218; Deering's Nottinghamia, &c. pp. 46, 47; Neal's Hist. of Puritans, i. 273; Wright's Queen Elizabeth and her Times, ii. 153; Bancroft's Survey of the Pretended Holy Discipline, &c. pp. 1, 2; Penn's Preface to Fox's Journal, ed. 1891, pp. xxiii–xxv; Hunt's Religious Thought in England, i. 234 et seq.; Barclay's Inner Life of the Commonwealth, pp. 25–35; Ross's Religions of the World, London, 1696, p. 452 (portrait); Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, &c., 1614–61, Hanserd Knollys Soc. 1846, pp. 385–9; Ecclesiæ Londino-Batavæ Archivum, ed. J. H. Hessels, vols. i. ii. (Cantbr. 1887, 1889). The libraries at Cambridge, Lambeth, Leyden, the Mennonite church of Amsterdam, and that of Mr. W. Christie-Miller at Britwell, all contain unique specimens of Niclaes's works. Information has also been sent by Dr. Franz Nippold of Jena, and Professor S. Cramer of Amsterdam.]
NICHOLAS, ROBERT (1595–1667), judge, was son of John Nicholas of Devizes and Roundway in the parish of Bishop's Cannings, Wiltshire, and was baptised at St. James's, Southbroom, in that parish, on 21 Sept. 1595. On 23 Oct. 1640 he was elected to the Long parliament for Devizes, being described as ‘of Devizes’ (Official Returns, i. 495). In the same year he was commissioner in Wiltshire for raising money for the defence of the realm and payment of debts undertaken by parliament (Statutes of the Realm, v. 89, 156), and held the farm of All Cannings in the same county (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1640, p. 253). According to Noble (Regicides, ii. 98, 101) he was declared a rebel by Charles I in 1642, along with Humphrey Mackworth [see under Mackworth, Sir Humphrey]. In 1643 he was appointed one of the managers of
