of Bitton in Gloucestershire, and was born at Upton in that county. He matriculated in April 1624, from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1628, and M.A. in 1630. He became rector of Partney, Lincolnshire, but on the outbreak of the civil war he took the covenant, becoming minister of St. Philip's, Bristol, and afterwards of Chew Magna, Somerset. In 1654 he was at Wells, acting as assistant to the commissioners for ejecting scandalous ministers. In 1662 he was ejected from Dursley, where he was assistant to Joseph Woodward. He then preached in London for some time. In April 1672 his house in Jewin Street was licensed as a presbyterian meeting-house (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1672, pp. 274, 326). The bishop of Gloucester subsequently connived at his officiating at Horseley, Gloucestershire. He died in possession of the vicarage of Horseley on 7 July 1678, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His son Henry is separately noticed [see Stubbs, Henry, (1632–1676)].
Stubbes's chief works were: 1. ‘A Dissuasive from Conformity to the World,’ London, 1675, 8vo, to which were appended ‘God's Severity against Man's Iniquity’ and ‘God's Gracious Presence the Saints great Privilege.’ 2. ‘Great Treaty of Peace. … Exhortation of making Peace with God,’ London, 1676–7, 8vo. 3. ‘Conscience the best Friend upon Earth,’ London, 1677, 12mo; 1684, 24mo; 1840, 12mo; and in Welsh, 1715, 12mo.
[Calamy's Account, p. 318; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 1255; Murch's Presbyterianism in the West of England; Baxter's Funeral Sermon on Stubbes in Practical Works, vol. iv.; Holy and Profitable Sayings of that Rev. Divine Mr. S., London, 1678; J. A. Jones's Bunhill Memorials.]
STUBBS or STUBBE, JOHN (1543?–1591), puritan zealot, born about 1543 in Norfolk, was son of John Stubbe, a country gentleman of Buxton, Norfolk, by his wife Elizabeth. A sister was wife of Thomas Cartwright the puritan [q. v.] John matriculated at Cambridge as a pensioner of Trinity College on 12 Nov. 1555, and graduated B.A. early in 1561. Although he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, he chiefly resided in Norfolk, and made his home in the manor-house of Thelveton, which he inherited from his father, together with other estates at Buxton and elsewhere in the county. An ardent puritan of some learning and literary taste, he in 1574 seems to have published a translation of the ‘Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury’ which John Joscelyn [q. v.], Archbishop Parker's secretary, had drawn up in Latin, and incorporated in the archbishop's ‘De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ’ (1572). Subsequently Stubbe developed a fiery zeal against catholicism which led him into a dangerous situation. He viewed with dismay the negotiations for Queen Elizabeth's marriage with the Duke of Anjou, which were in progress from 1578 onwards. In August 1579 he published a protest in a pamphlet which he entitled ‘The Discoverie of a gaping gulf whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French mariage, if the Lord forbid not the banes by letting her majestie see the sin and punishment thereof.’ Stubbe wrote of the queen in terms of loyalty and affection, but freely discussed questions of policy, virulently denounced the French duke, and especially roused the queen's resentment by referring to the undue influence that a husband would be likely to assert over her, and the improbability that at her age she could bear children. On 27 Sept. 1579 a royal proclamation prohibited the circulation of Stubbe's pamphlet, and on 13 Oct. following Stubbe, with his publisher, William Page, and his printer, Hugh Singleton, was tried at Westminster on a charge of disseminating seditious writings, under the act 2 Philip and Mary, which was passed to protect ‘the queen's husband’ from libellous attack. The court held that the statute applied equally well to ‘the queen's suitor.’ The three defendants were found guilty, and were sentenced to have their right hands cut off. Many lawyers questioned the legality of the proceedings on the ground that the statute under which the men were indicted was a temporary measure passed for the protection of Philip during Queen Mary's lifetime, and was abrogated by Queen Mary's death. One of the judges of the common pleas, Robert Monson [q. v.], openly asserted this view, and, having been in consequence sent to the Fleet prison, was removed from the bench on refusing to retract (cf. Camden's Annales, translated 1625, bk. iii. 14–16). Meanwhile Singleton was pardoned, but on 3 Nov. Stubbe and Page were brought from the Tower to a scaffold set up in the market-place at Westminster. Before the barbarous sentence was carried out Stubbe addressed the bystanders. He professed warm attachment to the queen, and the loss of his hand, he added, would in no way impair his loyalty (see his speech in Harington's Nugæ Antiquæ). When he ceased speaking he and Page ‘had their right hands cut off by the blow of a butcher's knife (with a mallet) struck through their wrists.’ ‘I can remember,’ wrote Stow the chronicler, who was present, ‘standing by John Stubbe [and] so soon as his right hand was off, [he] put off his hat with his left, and
