Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hicks, William (1621-1660)
HICKS, WILLIAM (1621–1660), puritan, son of Nicholas Hicks, was born at Kerris in the parish of Paul, Cornwall, and baptised at Paul on 2 Jan. 1620–1. He was educated in the high school at Exeter and at Liskeard, and on 9 Feb. 1637–8 matriculated as a commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, where he ‘ran through the classes of logic and philosophy.’ Recalled to his native county at the beginning of the civil war, before he had taken a degree, he was, by his relatives, put in arms against the king, and, according to Wood, ‘became so fanatical in his opinion that he was esteemed by some to be little better than an anabaptist.’ He was appointed a captain in the trained bands, and was noted for his zeal against the royalists. He died at Kerris in February, and was buried in the parish church of Paul on 3 March 1659–60.
He published: ‘Ἀποκάλυψις Ἀποκάλυψεως, or the Revelation Revealed, being a practical exposition of the Revelation of St. John. Whereunto is annexed a small Essay, entituled Quinto-Monarchiæ, cum quarto Ὁμολογία, or A Friendly Complyance between Christ's Monarchy and the magistrates,’ Lond. 1659 and 1661, fol., dedicated to Sir Richard Chyverton, late lord mayor of London. Copies of the latter date have a portrait, engraved by David Loggan, of the author in a cloak. Wood states that the real author of the ‘Quinto-Monarchiæ’ was Hicks's kinsman, Alexander Harrie, a minister's son in Cornwall, B.D., and sometime fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 489; Gairdner's Register of Wadham College, p. 136; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. iv. 47; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis, p. 238.]