BASTWICK, Dr JOHN, born at Writtle, in Essex, in 1593, was a physician at Colchester, who applied himself to writing books against popery. About 1633 he printed in Holland a Latin treatise entitled Elenchus Religionis Papisticæ, with Flagellum Pontificis et Episcoporum Latianum; in which the English prelates thinking themselves also aimed at, he was fined £1000 in the High Commission Court, excommunicated, prohibited from practising physic, while his books were ordered to be burnt, and the author himself consigned to prison. Instead of recanting, however, he wrote Apologeticus ad Præsulæ Anglicanos, and another book called The Litany, in which he exclaimed vehemently against the proceedings of that arbitrary court, and taxed the bishops with an inclination towards popery. Pryme and Burton coming under the lash of the Star-chamber court at the same time, they were all censured as scandalous and seditious persons, condemned to pay a fine of £5000 each, to be set in the pillory, to lose their ears, and to undergo perpetual imprisonment in three remote parts of the kingdom. The parliament in 1640 reversed these proceedings, and ordered Bastwick a reparation of £5000 out of the estates of the commissioners and lords who had persecuted him. The civil commotions which ensued prevented his receiving this solatum for his sufferings; but, in 1644, his wife had an allowance ordered for her own and her husband's maintenance. The place and time of his death are unknown.