catholicism were at that period extremely rare, and his defection excited widespread astonishment, amounting almost to dismay. Sibthorp studied divinity at Oscott for a few months, was ordained priest on 21 May 1842, and was then attached to the cathedral church of St. Chad, Birmingham, though he subsequently settled down in a ‘several house’ at Edgbaston. Dissatisfied with his position, and mentally disquieted, he left Edgbaston in June 1843, and purchased a cottage near St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, where he continued to exercise his priesthood until October. Then he returned to the communion of the established church. After three years of retirement at Winchester he made a fruitless request to Bishop Sumner that he might be reinstated as an Anglican clergyman. Settling at Lincoln in 1847, he established a liberally endowed St. Anne's bede-house, and in 1857 he was readmitted to discharge the functions of the Anglican ministry. He resigned the chaplain-wardenship of St. Anne's at the close of 1864, and on 25 Jan. 1865 he resumed the privilege of saying mass in the private chapel of Cardinal Wiseman (Morris, Dr. Wiseman's Last Illness, p. 28). In December 1865 he was attached to the cathedral of St. Barnabas, Nottingham. He frequently preached there, but, ‘though now a Roman catholic priest, his feelings, his language, his general teaching, were, in some very important respects, still evangelical’ (Fowler, Life of Sibthorp, p. 177). He was placed on the list of retired priests in December 1874, died at Nottingham on 10 April 1879, and was buried in Lincoln cemetery, where, in accordance with his express desire, the English service was read over his grave.
Sibthorp was unquestionably pious and sincere, but he could never be satisfied that he was ‘in the right way’ as regards church communion.
In addition to several single sermons he published: 1. ‘Psalms and Hymns, selected and adapted for public worship,’ Ryde, 1831, 8vo. 2. ‘Pulpit Recollections; being notes of Lectures on the Book of Jonah,’ London, 1834 and 1835, 8vo. 3. ‘The Book of Genesis, with brief explanatory and practical observations,’ London, 1835, fol. 4. ‘The Family Liturgy; being a course of Morning and Evening Prayers for a Family,’ London, 1836, 8vo. 5. ‘Some Answer to the Inquiry, “Why are you become a Catholic?”’ London (four editions), 1842, 8vo. 6. ‘A Further Answer to the Inquiry, “Why have you become a Catholic?”’ London, 1842, 8vo. This and the preceding work elicited replies from W. Dodsworth, T. Dikes, A. P. Blakeney, R. H. Herschell, D. McAfee, and W. Palmer. 7. ‘The Office of the Holy Communion; or, Celebration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or Holy Eucharist, anciently called the Mass,’ London (two editions), 1844, 4vo. 8. ‘An Office of Family Devotion; or, a Catholic Domestic Liturgy. By E. M.,’ 1845, 8vo. 9. ‘Daily Bread; being a few Morning Meditations, for the use of Catholic Christians,’ Nottingham, 1876, 8vo; London, 1879, 8vo.
[Richard Waldo Sibthorp: a biography, by the Rev. J. Fowler, M.A., London, 1880, 8vo, with photographic portrait; London and Dublin Orthodox Journal (1842) xv. 187, 396, (1843) xvi. 55; Men of the Time, 1879; Nottingham Guardian, 12 April 1879, p. 5, col. 5; Tablet, 19 April 1879; Times, 2 Feb. 1892, p. 10, cols. 1 and 2; Guardian, 1879, i. 524, 556; Browne's Annals of the Tractarian Movement, p. 61; Foster's Alumni Oxon. modern ser. iv. 1295; Bloxam's Magd. Coll. Register, vii. 200–46.]
SIBTHORP or SYBTHORPE, ROBERT, D.D. (d. 1662), royalist divine, was, according to Bliss, the son of John Sybthorpe, a Northamptonshire clergyman. He was admitted at Trinity College, Cambridge, on 6 May 1614, commenced B.A. 1615–16, was elected a fellow in 1618, proceeded M.A. in 1619, and was incorporated M.A. at Oxford on 13 July 1619. On 11 May 1619 on the presentation of Robert Lambe, LL.D., he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Sepulchre, Northampton, and on 8 April 1622 he was instituted to the vicarage of Brackley, Northamptonshire, which he served by a curate. He was a member of the convocation of 1625. He became B.D. of Cambridge in 1627, according to Foster; but it is certain that he was D.D. after 18 May 1625 and before 22 Feb. 1626–7.
Sybthorpe made his reputation by an assize sermon (Romans xiii. 5), preached at Northampton on the last-named date, and urging a cheerful response to the royal demand (made in the previous September) for a general loan. He had this excuse for touching the topic, that at Northampton on 12 Jan. a royal commission had asked the opinion of local divines as to the lawfulness of the loan. The case for the loan itself was not ill put in the sermon; but among obiter dicta, Sybthorpe affirmed (p. 13) that ‘if princes command anything which subjects may not performe, because it is against the laws of God, or of nature, or impossible, yet subjects are bound to undergoe the punishment without either resistance or railing and reviling; and so to yeeld a passive obedience, where they cannot exhibit an
