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London, 1658; ‘corrected and much augmented with Poeticals added, and these four Tracts: (i.) Of Words not to be used by elegant Latinists; (ii.) The difference of many Words like one another in Sound or Signification; (iii.) Some Words governing a Subjunctive Mood not mentioned in Lillie's “Grammar;” (iv.) Concerning Χρεία and Γνώμη for entering Children upon making of themes; dedicated to Sir Robert Wallop, Sir Nicholas Love, and Sir Thomas Hussey;’ 3rd edit. London, 1661, 8vo; 4th edit. London, 1664, 12mo; 8th edit. 1673, 8vo; 11th edit. 1685, 12mo.
- ‘Annalium mundi universalium, &c., tomus unicus,’ London, 1677, fol., revised before publication by Dr. Thomas Pierce [q. v.], dean of Salisbury.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 395; Robinson's Works.]
ROBINSON, JOHN (d. 1598), president of St. John's College, Oxford, was matriculated as sizar of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, May 1550, from Richmondshire. He graduated B.A. in January 1553–4, was elected fellow of his hall, 1554, and proceeded M.A. 1557. He was recommended by the master of Trinity, Robert Beaumont (d. 1567) [q. v.], to Cecil, with Matthew Hutton, as a fit person to be made master of Pembroke Hall, but Hutton was chosen. On 19 May 1563 he was incorporated at Oxford. He was nominated by Sir Thomas White, the founder, to be president of St. John's College, Oxford, on the resignation of William Stocke, and was elected by the fellows, 4 Sept. 1564. He resigned 10 July 1572. He supplicated for the degree of B.D. 22 March 1566–7, and was made D.D. at Cambridge, 11 June 1583.
Robinson was a popular preacher, and held many preferments. He was rector of East Treswell, Nottinghamshire, 1556; of Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, 1560; of Thornton, Yorkshire, 1560; of Great Easton, Essex, 1566–76; of Kingston Bagpuze, Berkshire, 1568; of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, 1575; of Fishtoft, Lincolnshire, 1576; of Caistor, Lincolnshire, 1576; of Gransden, Cambridgeshire, 1587, and of Somersham, Huntingdonshire, 1589.
On 3 Aug. 1572 he was installed precentor of Lincoln Cathedral. On 14 July 1573 he was collated to the prebend of Welton Beckhall, in which he was installed 7 Sept. He resigned this prebend on being collated to the prebend of Caistor (installed 9 Oct. 1574); and in 1581 he became prebendary of Leicester St. Margaret (collated 29 March, installed 9 July). On 31 May 1584 he was installed archdeacon of Bedford, and in 1580 he held the archdeaconry of Lincoln. In 1584, during the vacancy of the see of Lincoln, he was appointed commissary to exercise episcopal jurisdiction in the diocese, by Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1594 he received a canonry of Gloucester. He died in March 1597–8, and was buried at Somersham, Huntingdonshire. John Robinson [q. v.], pastor of the pilgrim fathers, has been very doubtfully claimed as his son.
[St. John's College MSS.; Rawlinson MSS.; Cooper's Alumni Cantabrigienses, ii. 235; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. and Fasti; Registrum Academ, Cantabrig.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Register of University of Oxford, ed. Boase (Oxford Historical Society); Le Neve's Fasti; Wilson's History of Merchant Taylors' School; Willis's Cathedrals.]
ROBINSON, JOHN (1576?–1625), pastor of the pilgrim fathers, a native of Lincolnshire, according to Bishop Hall (Common Apologie, 1610, p. 125), was born about 1576.
His early career is involved in obscurity. Wide acceptance has been given to Hunter's identification of the pastor with John Robinson who was admitted as a sizar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, on 9 April 1592 (his tutor being John Jegon [q. v.]), who graduated B.A. in February 1596, and was admitted a fellow in 1598. The college books describe him variously as ‘Lincolniensis’ and ‘Notingamiensis,’ and Hunter conjectures that he was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, divided from Nottinghamshire by the Trent; a conjecture which the parish register in its damaged state leaves undecided.
Mr. Alexander Brown, in his ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ (1895), conjectures that the pastor was born in Lincoln, and was the son of John Robinson, D.D. (d. 1598) [q. v.], precentor of Lincoln from 1572, and prebendary from 1573. For this there is no evidence; baptisms in Lincoln Cathedral are entered in the register of St. Mary Magdalene, which only begins in the seventeenth century.
Some details in the early career of a third contemporary John Robinson suggest a likelihood of his identity with the pastor, but at a critical point the argument breaks down. Robert Robinson (d September 1617), rector of Saxlingham Nethergate and Saxlingham Thorpe, Norfolk, had a son John, who was baptised at Saxlingham on 1 April 1576. This John Robinson is probably to be identified with the John Robinson, admitted as a sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 2 March 1592–3, who graduated M.A. 1600, B.D. 1607.
The Saxlingham registers further show that John Robinson, clerk, was married on 24 July 1604 to Anne Whitfield. The Norwich diocesan records state that John Robinson, B.D. (doubtless the Emmanuel graduate),
