Moket, Richard

, warden of All Souls college, Oxford, was born in 1578 in Dorsetshire, and educated first at Brasenose college, whence in 1599 he was elected a fellow of All Souls, befng then four years standing in the degree of B. A. Afterwards he took his master’s degree, and entered into holy orders. He hecame domestic chaplain to archbishop Abbot, and in Dec. 1610 was instituted to the rectory of St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, which he resigned in December following. In 1611 he was made rector of St. Michael, Crooked-lane, but resigned it in June 1614, in consequence of having been in April preceding, elected warden of All Souls, on which occasion he took his degree of D. D. He held afterwards the rectory of Monks Risborow, in the county of Buckingham, and of Newington, near Dorchester, in Oxfordshire. He was one of the king' commissioners in ecclesiastical affairs, and died July 5, 1618, in the fortieth year of his age. Wood seems to insinuate that his death was hastened by the treatment his work received. This was a folio published at London in 1616, containing a Latin translation of the Liturgy, Catechisms, 39 articles, ordination book, and doctrinal points extracted from the homilies, to which he added, also in Latin, a treatise “de politia ecclesiae Anglicanac.” The design of this publication was to recommend the formularies and doctrines of the Church of England to foreign nations; but, according to Wood, there was such a leaning towards “Calvin’s Platform,” that the work was not only called in, but ordered to be publicly burnt. Heylin, who speaks highly of the author’s character and good intentions, thinks that the true cause of this work being so disgraced was, that in translating the 20th article, he omitted the first | clause concerning the power of the church to decree rites and ceremonies, &c. His treatise “De Politia” was reprinted at London in 1683, 8vo, but the former edition we conceive is of rare occurrence, as we do not find it in the Bodleian or Museum catalogues. 1

1

Heylin’c Life of Laud, p. 70 —Ath. Ox. To). I. Wood’s Colleges and Halls.