His writings were chiefly on the theological questions of the day on which his answers were required, especially touching the Sacrament and the abuses of the Mass. But he wrote besides a book of epigrams. He also stirred up William Horman, vice-provost of Eton, to write a treatise called ‘Antibossicon,' to which he himself prefixed a poetic epistle addressed to the author, the object of the treatise being to defend some learned men against the attacks of one Robert Whitynton. A fine Latin encomium, addressed to Aldridge himself by his contemporary, John Leland the antiquary, is preserved among that writer's ‘Collectanea' (v. 134).
[Wood's Athenæ (ed. Bliss), i. 232; Harwood's Alumni Etonenses, 3, 57, 131; Ackerman's Hist. of the Colleges of Winchester, Eton, &c., 43, 44, 58; Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII, vols. iii.–vii.; Erasmi Epistolæ, pp. 901, 971, 998 (Leyden edit.); Cole's MSS. i. 148–150, xiii. 144–8 (Add. MSS. 5802 and 5814 in Brit. Mus.); Burnet; Strype; Le Neve; Newcourt's Repertorium; Anstis's Register of the Garter, ii. 393.]
ALDRIDGE, WILLIAM (1737–1797), nonconformist minister, was born at Warminster, in Wiltshire, in 1737. As a youth he spent a mere pleasure-seeking life. In his twenty-fourth year, however, he was seized with a passionate desire to be a preacher of the gospel, and was admitted to the Countess of Huntingdon's college at Treveca in South Wales. There he remained until a regular theological course was completed. He received ‘license,' and for a number of years preached in the chapels of the countess's ‘connection'—semi-methodist, semi-episcopal. In September 1771 he was sent by Lady Huntingdon, with a Joseph Cook, to Margate, in the Isle of Thanet. They were utter strangers in the place. They began to address any who would listen to them in the open air. The numbers increased from month to month. About this time occurred in Dover a schism among the Wesleyan Methodists, and the malcontents invited the two missionary evangelists thither. Mr. Aldridge preached for the first time in the market-place on a Sunday. The opposition was violent. But a presbyterian meeting-house that had been closed having been obtained, he officiated in it while he resided at Dover. Later, the two preachers supplied Margate and Dover alternately. In the midst of his usefulness the Countess of Huntingdon appointed Mr. Aldridge to ‘supply' the Mulberry Garden chapel in Wapping. There his ministry proved so remarkable a success that the large congregation united in a petition to her ladyship to ‘continue him as their minister.' The despotic lady—as was her wont—refused the appeal of the people. This led to Mr. Aldridge severing himself from the countess's ‘connexion.' Jewry-street chapel (Calvinistic Methodist) being then vacant, he was ‘called' to it, accepted the invitation, and remained its devoted and beloved minister for upwards of twenty years. He died on 28 Feb. 1797. Like so many nonconformist ministers he was buried in Bunhill-fields. The two literary-theological memorials of Aldridge are his ‘Doctrine of the Trinity, Stated, Proved, and Defended,' and a funeral sermon on the death of the Countess of Huntingdon. The former is occasionally most powerful in its reasoning.
[Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, i. 129–132; Bryson's Sermon on the Death of the Rev. W. Aldridge, pp. 14, 16; Baptist Register, i. 501–2.]
ALDULF, king of Northumbria. [See Eardwulf.]
ALDULF, or EALDULF (d. 1002), archbishop of York, is said by Hugh, called Candidus, the historian of Peterborough, writing about 1175, to have been ‘chancellor' to King Eadgar. Having killed his only son by accidentally overlaying him as the child slept between him and his wife, he was about to seek absolution at Rome, but was persuaded by bishop Æthelwold to do good deeds at home, as an atonement for his involuntary sin. He accordingly became a monk of the abbey of Medeshamstede or Burgh (Peterborough), which was then in ruins, and devoted all his wealth to rebuilding it. We know on more certain authority that he was made abbot of Burgh when that house was rebuilt by bishop Æthelwold in 963, and that the new abbot bought many lands, and ‘greatly enriched the minster withal' (A.-S. Chron. sub an. 963). He remained abbot until the death of Oswald, archbishop of York, in 992, and was then chosen to succeed him. With York he also held the see of Worcester, as Oswald did before him. In 994 he signs a charter as bishop only; in 995 as elect to the archbishopric; and in 996 in a grant of his own as archbishop. We may, therefore, conclude that, though he was elected to the see of York, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us, in 992, he did not receive the pall until 995–6. Like Oswald he was a munificent benefactor to the abbey of Fleury. On 15 April 1002 he translated the body of Oswald with great honour at Worcester. He
