ii. 379, 402, iii. 23, v. 107, 308). He died at Finedon on 20 Nov. 1756, aged 73, and was buried there. He married the Hon. Elizabeth Digby, second daughter of William, lord Digby, who died a Aix in Provence, 4 Nov. 1730. His portrait by M. Dahl is in Christ Church Hall. He published 'A Sermon [on Heb. xiii. 1] preach'd before the Sons of the Clergy,' 4to, London, 1726.
His only surviving son, William, who died at the age of eighty-eight on 20 March 1814, represented Oxford University during seven parliaments from 1768 till 1806, when he retired. He always gave his steady support to Wilberforce's measures for the abolition of the slave trade. His portrait by M. Brown is at Christ Church (Chester, Reg. of Westminster Abbey, pp. 52, 18 n.)
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), pp. 175, 215, 237, 238, 331; Wotton's Baronetage (Kimber and Johnson), iii. 10-11; Betham's Baronetage, iii. 136-7; Historical Register (Chronological Diary), v. 4, vi. 32, vii. 30, xvi. 34; Wood's Colleges and Halls (Gutch), Appendix, p. 292; Evan's Cat. of Engarved Portraits, i. 101; Addit. MSS. 24120, ff. 252-61, 29601, ff. 258, 259.]
DOLBEN, WILLIAM (d. 1631), prebendary of Lincoln, bishop designate, came of a family long seated at Segrwyd in Denbighshire, but was born at Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, the only son of John Dalbin or Dolbin of that town, by his wife Alice, daughter of Richard Myddelton of Denbigh, and sister of Sir Thomas Myddelton of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, and of the famous Sir Hugh Myddelton. He was educated on the foundation of Westminster, whence he passed to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1603. He was author of Latin elegiacs in ‘Musa Hospitalis Ecclesiæ Christi Oxon. in adventum Jacobi Regis, Annæ Reginæ, Henrici principis ad eandem Ecclesiam,’ 4to, Oxford, 1605. He was instituted rector of Stanwick, Northamptonshire, 8 Nov. 1623, and on the same day to the rectory of Benefield in the same county (Bridges, Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, ii. 195, 398). On 31 Aug. 1629, being then D.D., he became prebendary of Caistor in the church of Lincoln (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 128), a preferment which he owed to the lord keeper, Bishop Williams, whose niece he had married. Dolben died in September 1631, and was buried at Stanwick on the 19th of that month (parish register). He was so beloved by his parishioners that during his last illness they ploughed and sowed his glebe at their own expense, in order that his widow might have the benefit of the crops. In his will, dated 1 Sept. and proved 25 Oct. 1631, he left 20l. to the town of Haverfordwest ‘to be added to the legacy of my cosen, William Middleton’ (reg. in P. C. C. 105, St. John). By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Hugh Williams of Coghwillan, Carnarvonshire, he left three sons: John [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of York; William, who became a judge of the king's bench; and Rowland, a ‘sea-officer,’ and two daughters.
His great-grandson, Sir John Dolben [q. v.], when sending some account of the family to Thomas Wotton in 1741, writes: ‘I have heard my father often say yt his grandfather, Dr. William Dolben, was nominated to the bishoprick of Gloster, but yt upon his falling extreamly ill the instruments were suspended till he died’ (Addit. MS. 24120, f. 255 b.) Gloucester, however, was held by Dr. Godfrey Goodman from 1624 until 1640. It is most likely that Dolben was to have been bishop of Bangor, to which see his relative, Dr. David Dolben [q. v.], was consecrated on 4 March 1631–2.
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. (1852), pp. 71–2, 115, 160, 210, 387; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 868–9; Wotton's Baronetage (Kimber and Johnson), iii. 8–9; Betham's Baronetage, iii. 132–3; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 18 n.]
DOLBEN, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1694) judge, second son of the Rev. William Dolben D.D. [q. v.], rector of Stanwick, Northamptonshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Williams of Coghwillan, Carnarvonshire and niece of Archbishop Williams [q. v.] (lord keeper 1621-5), was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1647-8, and called to the bar 1655. He recived the degree of M.A. at Oxford in 1665, on the occasion of incorporation ad eundem of the Earl of Manchester, whose secretary he was. In 1672 he was elected a bencher of his inn, and in 1676 recorder of London, and knighted. He took the degree of serjeant-at-law in 1677, and shortly afterwards was appointed king's serjeant. Archbishop Sheldon made him steward of the see of Canterbury—a post which he resigned in 1678, when Roger North succeeded him. On 4 April 1678 he opened the case for the crown on the trial of the Earl of Pembroke by his peers in Westminster Hall for the murder of Nathaniel Cony. The earl, who had quarreled with Cony in a tavern and brutally kicked him to death, was found guilty of manslaughter. On 23 Oct. 1678 Dolben was created a puisne judge of the king's bench. In this capacity he helped to try many persons suspected of complicity in the supposed popish plot, among others Evelyn's friend Sir George Wakeman, on of the physicians to the queen (Evelyn, Diary, 18 July 1679), Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1680), and Edward Fitzharris and
