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'''John Bridgewater''' was an English clerical historian of the Catholic Confessors under [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]].

==Biography==
Bridgewater was born in [[Yorkshire]] about 1532; died probably at [[Trier]], about 1596. He proceeded [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge)|M. A.]] at [[Oxford University]] in 1556,<ref>[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp171-200 Braly-Bruer Pages 171-200 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714]</ref> was ordained priest, and in 1563 became [[Rector (academia)|Rector]] of [[Lincoln College, Oxford|Lincoln College]] in that university. In 1574, he resigned these and several other important preferments, and crossed over to [[English College, Douai|Douai]] along with several of his students, in order to practice Catholicism more freely.<ref name="CE">{{CathEncy|wstitle=John Bridgewater}}</ref>

He probably never returned to England but lived at various Catholic places on the European continent ([[Reims]], [[Paris]], [[Rome]], Trier); in 1588 and 1594 he resided at Trier. [[Pedro de Ribadeneira]], [[Nathaniel Bacon (Jesuit)|Nathaniel Bacon]], and [[Henry Foley (historian)|Henry Foley]] account him a member of the [[Society of Jesus]]; the [[Catholic Encyclopedia]] argues that they have no proof of this.<ref>The Catholic Encyclopedia cites Records of English Catholics, I, pg 408.</ref>

==Writings==
Bridgewater refuted (Trier 1589) a Protestant work on the pope as Antichrist and also wrote "Account of the Six Articles usually Proposed to the Missioners that Suffered in England", and against which he voted in 1562. {{clarify|date=November 2013}} 

He may be best known as the earliest martyrologist of Catholic England. His work, conceived in the spirit of [[Eusebius]] as a triumphant apology for Catholicism, is entitled ''Concertatio Ecclesliae Catholicae in Angliâ adversus Calvinopapistas et Puritanos sub Elizabethâ Reginâ quorundam hominum doctrina et sanctitate illustrium renovata et recognita, etc.'', i.e. ''The Battle of the Catholic Faith in England under Queen Elizabeth, renewed in the lives of certain men illustrious for learning and sanctity, among them more than one hundred martyrs, and a very great number of others distinguished for their (religious) deeds and sufferings; confirmed also by the retractations of apostates, by new edicts of the persecutors, and by the writings of very learned Catholics against the Anglican, or rather female, pontificate, and in defense of the authority of the Roman pontiff over Christian princes'' (Trier, 1588, about 850 pp. in octavo).
 
Another edition was brought out by [[William Allen (cardinal)|William Allen]] in 1594; it served thenceforth as an original record of the persecutions of English Catholics. [[Hugh Tootell]], [[Richard Challoner]], and [[John Lingard]] draw on it extensively for biographical and historical data. Its rather miscellaneous contents are described in the [[Chetham Society]]'s Remains (XLVIII, 47-50).<ref name="CE" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{Catholic|wstitle=John Bridgewater}}

{{Authority control}}

{{Rectors of Lincoln College, Oxford|state=collapsed}}
{{University of Oxford|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridgewater, John}}
[[Category:1530s births]]
[[Category:1590s deaths]]
[[Category:16th-century English historians]]
[[Category:16th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:16th-century English Anglican priests]]
[[Category:16th-century English Roman Catholic priests]]
[[Category:Clergy from Yorkshire]]
[[Category:Anglican priest converts to Roman Catholicism]]
[[Category:Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford]]
[[Category:English male non-fiction writers]]