Robert Sibthorpe

was initiated in Academical Learning in Linc. Coll. as it seems, but leaving the University before he took a degree, entred into holy Orders, and taking to wife the daughter of Sir John Lamb of Rothwell in Northamptonshire Chancellour of Peterborough and afterwards Dean of the Arches, was put into the Commission of Peace, being then Rector of Water-Stratford in Bucks. by the gift of Sir Arth. Throcmorton of Paulerspury. About that time shewing himself a fierce Persecutor of the Puritans living near him, was, thro the means of his Father-in-law made Vicar of Brackley in Northamptonshire, and by the endeavours of Dr. Piers Vicechanc. of this University, Doctor of Divinity, an. 1624, (being then a Member of Linc. Coll.) tho he before had not been honoured with any degree in this, or, as I presume, in any other University. He, with Rog. Manwaring were stiff assertors of the Kings Cause and Prerogative, and great promoters for the raising a Loan of money without the knowledge and assistance of his Parliament, an. 1626. For which service both had preferment, Manwaring being afterwards made Rector of Stanford Rivers in Essex, &c. and Sibthorpe Chaplain in ord. to his Maj. Prebendary of Peterborough and Rector of Burton Latimers in Northamptonshire; from which two last he was violently ejected in the beginning of the Civil Wars. He was a person of little learning, and of few parts, only made it his endeavours by his forwardness and flatteries, to gain preferment. If you’ll believe one ((b))((b)) Andr. Marvell in his Rehearsal transpros’d, &c. Lond. 1672. pag. 299. that was no great friend to the Church of England, he’ll tell you that Sibthorpe and Manwaring were exceeding pragmatical, so intollerably ambitious and so desperately proud, that scarce any Gentleman might come near the tail of their Mules, &c. He hath published,

Several Sermons, as (1) A counterplea to an Apostates pardon, on Jerem. 5.7. Lond. 1618. qu. (2) Apostolical obedience, an Assize Serm. at Northampton on Rom. 13.7. Lond. 1627. qu. The whole scope of which is to justifie the lawfulness of the general loan (then set on foot by the Kings ill Counsellors, as one ((c))((c)) Will. Prynne in Canterburies Doom, p. 245. saith, to keep off Parliaments) and of the Kings imposing publick taxes by his own regal Power without consent in Parliament, and to prove that the People in point of conscience and religion, ought chearfully to submit to such loanes and taxes without any opposition. For which matters he was called into question, and censured by the Parliament. He hath other things extant, as I have been informed, but such I have not yet seen; and therefore can only say that in the time of the Rebellion, he suffered very great calamities for his Majesties cause, but upon the return of K. Ch. 2. in 1660, he was restored to his Prebendship, Rectory of Burton Latimers, and other Ecclesiastical Benefices, if he had any besides them, and that dying in a good old age, was buried on the 25 of April in sixteen hundred sixty and two,1662. in the Chancel of the Church of Burton Latimers. One Robert Sibthorpe Son of a Father of both his names, Rector of Northcadbury in Somersetshire, became a Student of Ball. Coll. in 1613 aged 18 years, which is all I know of him, being not to be understood to be the same with the former. And another Rob. Sibthorpe I find to have been M. of A. of Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Kilfenore in Ireland. See more in the Fasti, among the incorporations, an. 1619.