Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huntington, John
HUNTINGTON, JOHN (fl. 1553), poet and preacher, was apparently educated at Oxford, where he became 'noted among his contemporaries for a tolerable poet.' He published about 1540 a poem in doggerel verse, with the title, 'The Genealogy of Heretics' which is only known from Bale's reprint of it in 'A mysterye of inyquyte contayned within the heretycall Genealogye of Ponce Pantolabus is here both dysclosed & confuted by Johan Bale, an. 1542,' Geneva, 1545. Bale states in his preface that he saw Huntington's 'abhomynable jest' three years previously in two forms; that there were still a 'wonderfull nombre of copyes' abroad; that Huntington's printers were John Redman and Robert Wyer; and that Huntington, since 'converted to repentance,' doubtless detested his work. In 1541 Huntington, described as 'the preacher,' was one of three informers against a Scottish friar, Seton, for heresy; in 1545 Anne Askew gave his name as a man of wisdom by whom she was willing to be shriven; in 1547 he was preaching at Boulogne, apparently on the reformers' side, and saved from prison a gunner, William Hastlen, accused of heresy. In December 1553 he was brought before the council for writing a poem against Dr. Stokes and the sacrament, but by recanting and humbly submitting he contrived to escape unpunished to Germany. On the accession of Elizabeth he would seem to have returned, since his name is mentioned as preaching before large audiences at Paul's Cross in August and September 1559. He was admitted canon of Exeter on 16 May 1560. He is said to have written, besides the Genealogy,' 'Epitaphium Ricardi Pacaei' (Wood and Pits give differing first lines for this); 'Humanæ Vitæ Deploratio; "De lapsu Philosophiæ,' and several sermons. A manuscript entitled 'Meditationes Itineraries de Immortalitate Animæ' (Sloane MS. 2556) has been ascribed to Huntington, and has his surname written on the first page.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 241; Tanner's Bibl. Brit p. 423; Pits, App. p. 876; Strype's Annals, I. i. 199, 200; Strype's Mem. I. i. 572; Strype's Grindal, p. 39; Foxe's' Acts and Monuments, v. 449, 539, 568, 836, viii. 716, 717; A Dysclosynge or Openynge of the Manne of Synne, &c., compyled by J. Harryson, pp. 12, 98.