Higgs, Griffin

, descended from a considerable family in Gloucestershire, was born at Stoke Abbat, or South Stoke, near Henley in Oxfordshire, in 1589. After being educated at Reading school, he was entered of St. John’s college, Oxford, in 1606, and acquired very high reputation, both as an orator and disputant. Some time after taking his bachelor’s degree, he wrote a life of sir Thomas White, the founder of the college, in Latin verse, which is still preserved in ms. in the college. Bound up with it, is an account of the mock ceremonies on choosing a lord of misrule, an ancient Christmas frolic in that and other colleges. In 1611 he was elected probationer fellow of Merton college, and taking his Master’s degree, went into holy orders, and had two small cures bestowed on him by the college.

In 1627 he was sent to the Hague as chaplain to the queen of Bohemia, sister to Charles I. in which capacity be remained for twelve years. In 1630 he took his doctor’s | degree at Leyden, under the celebrated Andrew Rivet. On his return home, he was promoted, by the interest of archbishop Laud, to the living of Cliffe near Dover, and was also made chanter of St. David’s, and in 1638, dean of Lichfield, which cathedral, Wood says, he adorned to his great charge. When the church establishment was overthrown, he lost all his preferments, and retired to South Stoke, where he died Dec. 16, 1659. To the poor and school of Stoke he was a liberal benefactor by his will, and also to St. John’s and Merton colleges. His published works are, 1. “Problemata Theologica,” Leyden, 1630, 4to. 2. “Miscellanese Theses Theologies,” ibid. 1630 ¹