Barkham, John

, a very learned divine and antiquary, in the end of the sixteenth, and part, of the seventeenth century, was born in the parish of St. Mary the More, in the city of Exeter, about 1572. He was | the second son of Lawrence Barkham, of St. Leonard’s, near that city, by Joan his wife, daughter of Edward Bridgeman of Exeter, a near relation of John Bridgeman, bishop of Chester. In Michaelmas term, 15^7, he was entered a sojourner.of Exeter college in Oxford; and on the 24th of August, the year following, admitted scholar of Corpus Christi college in the same university. He took the degre of B. A. February 5 1590-1, and that of M. A. December 12, 1594. On “the 21st of June, 1596, he was chosen probationer fellow of Corpus Christi college, being then in orders and July 7, 1603, took the degree of B. D. Some time after, he became chaplain to Ric. Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury: and, after his death, to George Abbot, his successor in that see. On the llth of June, 1608, he was collated to the rectory of Finchleyin Middlesex, and on the 31st of October, 1610, to the prebend of Brownswood, in the cathedral of St. Paul’s on the 29th of March, 1615, to the rectory of Packlesham; the 27th of May following to the rectory of Lachingdon and, the 5th of December, 1616, to the rectory and deanery of Bocking, all in the county of Essex. But, in 1617, he resigned Packlesham, as he had done Finchley in 1615. March 14, 1615, he was created D. D. He had great skill and knowledge in most parts of useful learning, being an exact historian, a good herald, an able divine, a curious critic, master of several languages, an excellent antiquarian, and well acquainted with coins and medals, of which he had the best collection of any clergyman in his time. These he gave to Dr. Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, who presented them to the university of Oxford. He died at Bocking, March 25, 1642, and was buried in the chancel of that church. He was a man of strict life and conversation, charitable, modest, and reserved, but above all, exemplary in his duties as a clergyman. Dr. Barkham wrote nothing in his own name, but assisted others in their works, particularly Speed in his history of Great Britain, which that author gratefully acknowledges. In this work Barkham wrote” The life and reign of king John,“one of the most valuable in the book and” The life and reign of king Henry II.“in the same history. He is likewise the author of” The display of Heraldry,“&c. first published at London in 1610, folio, under the name of John Guillim. The learned author having mostly composed it in his younger years, thought it too light a subject for him (who was a | grave divine) to own, and gave Guillim the copy, who, adding some trivial things, published it, with the author’s leave, under his own name. He published also Mr. Ric, Crakanthorpe’s book against the archbishop of Spalato, entitled” Defensio Ecclesiie Anglicanee,“Lond. 1625, 4to, with a preface of his own. It is said also that he wrote a treatise on coins, which was never published. Fuller, in his usual, way, says, that he was <fr a greater lover of coins than of money; rather curious in the stamps than covetous for the metal thereof.” ¹