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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
The two great moments of John Huddleston’s life have made the latter half of it stand out in high relief, while his earlier days have always been lost in obscurity. Everyone knows that he was instrumental in saving the life of Charles II after the battle of Worcester, and that he reconciled the dying King to the Faith; but concerning his childhood, College days and early priestly life the old biographers have little to say. New evidence which has come to light about his youth, and inaccuracies which are common even in the well-documented history of his dealings with the King, make it worth while to try to rewrite the story of his life.
(1) Gillow (C.R.S., 20, 4) erroneously gives the date as April 15. The correct date is found in Jackson, p338.
(2) Richard Huddleston, alias Parkinson, had to leave the College in 1606 owing to ill health. “Fuit facilliraus ad regulas infringendas, sed visus est paulo ante discessura resipuisse et multis cum lacrimis veniam petere” says the Liber Ruber. The reform was permanent, for after his Ordination he did good work, becoming a Benedictine and reconciling many families to the Church. He was the author of an apologetic treatise, “The Short ana Plain Way to the Faith and Church” – of below.
(3) Fr. Charles Plowden lent it to one of the Commisioners engaged in dissolving the Bruges Colleges, and was unable to recover it. More recent searches in the Archives d'Etat in Brussels have proved vain. (Foley, 7, 378).
(4) He quotes Oliver's collections, s. v. Saundfora. In the only copy of Oliver which I could reach, that in the Vatican Library, I could find no mention of Saundford.
(5) Foley himself admits that the fact that Sandford was a prefect in the College does not imply that he was a Jesuit (6,330).
(6) Among many proofs, the most convincing is his Missal, C.R.S. 1.
(7) It may be interesting to give Foley's pedigree ana compare it with the correct one given by Jackson ana Burke.
(8) When John Sanaford first came to the Venerabile he used the alias Josephson, and it is with this name that he signs his Responsa. Perhaps that is why he omitted his father's name. Such aliases were not popular at the College, ana after 1632 he always uses “Sandfora” which was derived from his grandmother's family. (R. Huddleston's Responsa).
(9) Burke's Landed Gentry gives the year of the marriage from the York MS. of the pedigree; but possibly Anarew only went to live at Hutton John after his father's death.
(10) The only alternative solution, that he was an illegitimate child, is ruled out not only by the words of the Responsa “parentes habet nobiles” but also the fact that he would have needed a dispensation for Orders, and would have had to state the fact in his answers.
(11) Actually the family do seem to have been a little vague on birthdays and genealogical details. Uncle Richard, when he came to the College, said that he thought he was nearly nineteen, when in fact he had not turned eighteen; and gave the number of his brothers as three instead of six.
(12) Except in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, which is so inaccurate in dealing with this period that his evidence proves no more than that Huddleston was a Benedictine when Clarendon knew him after the Restoration.
(13) Michael Lorymer, quoting the “Beauties of England and Wales”, says that he followed Charles in disguise to the Continent, but this picturesque detail is not mentioned in Huddleston’s own account of his services to the King.
(14) Another book has sometimes been attributed to him, but without evidence. This is “Eikon Basilika Deutera: The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty King Charles II with his reasons for turning Roman Catholic, found in his strong box, together with Portrait of His Majesty at prayer.” Published 1694. It also contains a reprint of Huddleston’s account of his administering Viaticum to the King. Ehe strong box papers have caused much controversy which does not concern us here.