Henry Holland (clergyman)

Henry Holland (1556–1603) was an English clergyman, known for his writing on witchcraft.

Life

He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1580.[1] He was instituted to the vicarage of Orwell, Cambridgeshire, on 21 November 1580. In 1583 he commenced M.A., and on 13 February 1594 was instituted to the vicarage of St. Bride, London, on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Westminster Abbey. This benefice was vacant by his death before 13 February 1604.[2]

Works

Holland was the author of A Treatise against Witchcraft (1590).[3] It was directed from a Calvinist point of view against folk magic and the sceptical arguments of Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot; it also introduced arguments from the writings of Jean Bodin, Lambert Daneau and Niels Hemmingsen.[4]

Other works were

Holland also edited (London, by Felix Kyngston, 1603) ‘Lectures upon the Epistles of Paul to the Colossians,’ by Robert Rollok of Edinburgh, and the works of Richard Greenham (1599; 5th ed. 1612). [2]

References

  1. "Holland, Henry (HLNT579H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Cooper 1891.
  3. A Treatise against Witchcraft; or A Dialogue, wherein the greatest doubts concerning that sinne are briefly answered. … Herevnto is also added a Short Discourse, containing the most certen meanes ordained of God, to discouer, expell, and to confound all the sathanicall inuentions of Witchcraft and Sorcerie,’ Cambridge, 1590; dedicated to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
  4. Holmes, Clive. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13521. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cooper, Thompson (1891). "Holland, Henry (d.1604)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 27. London: Smith, Elder & Co.