Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Plough, John
PLOUGH, JOHN (d. 1562), protestant controversialist, son of Christopher Plough of Nottingham, and nephew of John Plough, rector of St. Peter's, in the same town was born there and educated at Oxford, where he supplicated for his B.C.L. in 1543–4. In the same year he became vicar of Sarratt, Hertfordshire, and subsequently succeeded his uncle as rector of St. Peter's, Nottingham. During Edward VI's reign he made himself prominent as a reformer, and on Mary's accession fled to Basle, where he remained throughout the reign. While there he engaged in controversy with William Kethe [q. v.] and Robert Crowley [q. v.], two of the exiles at Frankfort. About 1559 he returned to England, presented a declaration of protestant doctrines to Elizabeth, and was presented by his fellow-exile, Grindal, to the rectory of East Ham, Essex, in 1560. In the same year he was granted the living of Long Bredy, Dorset, by letters patent. He died before November 1562.
Wood ascribes to Plough several works which he had never seen, and none are now known to be extant. The titles are: 1. ‘An Apology for the Protestants,’ written in reply to ‘The Displaying of the Protestants,’ by Miles Huggarde [q. v.] It was composed and published at Basle, and Strype gives the date as 1558. 2. ‘A Treatise against the Mitred Men in the Popish Kingdom.’ 3. ‘The Sound of the Doleful Trumpet.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 301–2; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Lansd. MS. 980, f. 265; Strype's Eccl. Mem. III. i. 232, 442; Rymer's Fœdera, xv. 585; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 302; Whittingham's Brieff Discours of the Troubles at Frankford; Brown's Nottinghamshire Worthies.]