him on account of his accidental homicide. Being directed (August 1623) by warrant under the great seal to soften the rigour of the statutes against popish recusants–a concession to Spain intended to facilitate the conclusion of the marriage contract–Doddridge, according to Yonge, was hopeful of discovering a way to dispense with the statutes altogether. He concurred in the judgment delivered by Chief-justice Hyde on 28 Nov. 1627 refusing to admit to bail the five knights committed to prison for refusing to subscribe the forced loan of that year, and was arraigned by the House of Lords in April of the following year to justify his conduct. His plea was that the 'king holds of none but God.' He added somewhat querulously, 'I am old and have one foot in the grave, therefore I will look to the better part as near as I can. But omnia habere in memoria et in nullo errare divinum potius est quam humanum.'
He died on 13 Sept. 1628, at his house, Forsters, near Egham, and was buried in Exeter Cathedral. He married thrice, his last wife being Dorothy, daughter of Sir Amias Bampfield of North Molton, Devonshire, relict of Edward Hancock of Combe Martin. He left no issue. Fuller observes that 'it is hard to say whether he was better artist, divine, civil or canon lawyer,' and that 'he held the scales of justice with so steady an hand that neither love nor lucre, fear nor flattery, could bow him to either side,' praise which is hardly borne out by his conduct in the commendam case and the five knights' case. Hearing him pleading at the bar, Bacon is said to have remarked, 'It is done like a good archer, he shoots a fair compass.' From a habit of shutting his eyes while listening intently to a case, he acquired the sobriquet of 'the sleeping judge.' A curious incident occurred at the Huntingdon assizes in 1619. Doddridge having severely animadverted on the quality of the jurors, the sheriff gave to the next panel a fictitious set of names, such as Mamilian, prince of Tozland; Henry, prince of Godmanchester, and the like, which being read over with great solemnity, Doddridge is said not to have detected the imposition.
Doddridge is the author of the following posthumous works:
- 'The Lawyer's Light' (a manual for students), London, 1629, 4to.
- 'History of Wales, Cornwall, and Chester' (chiefly from records at the Tower), London, 1630, 4to.
- 'A Compleat Parson' (based on the lectures on advowsons referred to in the text), London, 1630, 4to; 2nd ed. 1641.
- 'The English Lawyer' (including a reprint of the 'Lawyer's Light' and a treatise for practitioners and judges), London, 1631, 4to.
- 'Law of Nobility and Peerage,' London, 1658, 8vo.
Hearne's 'Curious Discourses' contain two brief tracts by Doddridge: (1) 'Of the Dimensions of the Land of England;' (2) 'A Consideration of the Office and Duty of the Heralds in England.' A 'Dissertation on Parliament' was published as the work of Doddridge by his nephew John Doddridge of the Middle Temple, in a volume entitled 'Opinions of sundry learned Antiquaries touching the Antiquity, Power, &c. of the High Court of Parliament in England,' London, 1658, 12mo: reprinted in 1679, 8vo. It is of doubtful authenticity. The original edition of the work on deeds known as 'Sheppard's Touchstone of Common Assurances,' and the work on the 'Office of Executor,' assigned by Wood to Thomas Wentworth, both of which were published anonymously in 1641, have been ascribed to Doddridge. A small treatise on the royal prerogative (Harl. MS. 5220) also purports to be his work.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 201, 355; Spelman's Four Terms of the Year (Preface); Dugdale's Orig. 219; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 99, 100; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. 1 56; Cobbett's State Trials, iii. 51, 163; Metcalfe's Book of Knights, 158; Cal. State Papers (1611-18), 158; Spedding's Letters and Life of Bacon, v. 100, 360; Yonge's Diary (Camd. Soc.), 44, 69; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ii. 463; Whitelocke's Liber Famel. (Camd. Soc.), 109; Manningham's Diary (Camd. Soc.), 63; Harl. Misc. iii. 499; Fuller's Worthies (Devon).]
DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, D.D. (1702–1751), nonconformist divine, was born in London on 26 June 1702. His father, Daniel Doddridge (d. 17 July 1715), a prosperous oilman, was a son of an ejected minister, John Doddridge, and a grandson of Philip Doddridge, younger brother of Sir John Doddridge [q. v.] Daniel Doddridge married the daughter of John Bauman, a Lutheran preacher at Prague, who fled from persecution in 1626, and eventually kept a private school at Kingston-on-Thames. Philip was the twentieth and last issue of the marriage; so few were the signs of life at his birth that at first he was given up for dead; his constitution was always extremely delicate. But one other of the twenty children reached maturity, Elizabeth (d. March 1735), who married John Nettleton, dissenting minister at Ongar, Essex.
Doddridge told Orton that his education was begun by his mother, who taught him Bible history from the pictures on the Dutch tiles of the chimney. He learned his Latin grammar at a private school kept by Stott,
