Harpsfield, Nicholas

Harpsfield, Nicholas an English Roman Catholic historian, and brother of the preceding, was also educated at Winchester School and New College, Oxford, where he was admitted fellow in 1536, and bachelor of laws in 1543. He was made principal of Whitehall in 1544, regius professor of Greek in 1546, archdeacon of Canterbury and prebendary of St. Paul's in 1554. He also received the living of Layndon, but resigned it to his brother John in 1558. He was a very zealous Roman Catholic, and, on the accession of Elizabeth, refusing to acknowledge her supremacy, he was deprived of his preferments and imprisoned, or at least kept under restraint until his death in 1583. During his imprisonment (receiving every needed help from his custodian. bishop Parker) he composed his Historia Anglicana Ecclesiastica (Douay, 1622, fol.). To this there is appended, according to Nutt's catalogue (1837), a treatise entitled Brevis Narratio de Divortio Henrici VIII ab E. Campiana, which may be the "Treatise concerning Marriage" mentioned by Wood (see Appendix to Butler's Hist. of Reformation). His other works are Historia haeresis Wickliance (published with Hist. Ang.) Chronicon a Diluvio Noe ad annum 1559; and a very bitter attack upon the Protestant ecclesiastical historians, Fox in particular, which was conveyed secretly to the Netherlands, and published by his friend Alan Cope under his own name, to screen the real author from punishment at the hands of Elizabeth-the title in full is Alani Copi Dialogi ix contra Summi Pontificatus, Monastici Vitce Sanctorums, S. Imaginum oppugnatores et pseudo- Martyres: in quibus Centurionum Magdeburgeensium, Auctorum Apologice Anglicanae, Pseudo- Martyrologicorum nostri temporis, maxime vero Job. Foxi et aliorum, varice fraudes, putida calumniae et insignia mendacid., deteguntur (Antwerp, Plautin, 1556, 4to). He left also many MSS. — Rose, New Genesis Biog. Dict. 8, 212; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, 23, 442; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, 1, 788. (J. W. M).