under suspension: an "Answer to a late Pamphlet, Obedience Demonstrated by Overall's Convocation Book;" an "Answer to Sherlock's Vindication:" "Remarks on Some Late Sermons:" "The Present State of Jacobinism in England, 1700, A Second Part in Answer to the First," with several other productions of a similar character. The last mentioned pamphlet was written in reply to one by Burnet.[1] Wagstaffe's son resided for some time at Rome in the somewhat singular character of Protestant chaplain to the Chevalier St. George, and afterwards to his son. It is remarkable that the Pope should have permitted any one to reside, in his capital, in such a character: but the fact proves, that Rome herself often acts from motives of policy, as well as the secular and more political states. There are extant several letters from a Thomas Wagstaffe to Hearne, on various matters, but chiefly antiquities, to the study of which he seems to have devoted himself with much enthusiasm.[2] But if the account by Nichols of the death of the Pretender's chaplain be correct, this could scarcely have been the same person. It is stated, that he died at Rome in 1770, at the age of 78, and the letters to Hearne were written, some of them, as early as the year 1715.[3]
At this period the controversy respecting the Oaths was carried on with great bitterness on both sides. Higden appears to have been the first to renew the warfare on this particular point. He had himself
- ↑ Wagstaffe was the able vindicator of King Charles the First's claim to the authorship of the Ικων Βασιλικη, the controversy respecting which has frequently been revived but never settled. A list of his publications is given in the Biog. Brit. Supp. 220: and in Nichols's Lit. Anec. i. 35, 36.
- ↑ Nichols, i. 36
- ↑ Nichols, i. 36.
