wrote thence to Secretary Windebanck, protesting in very humble language his loyalty to the king (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1635–1636, p. 333). His religious views, always sternly protestant, in later life tended towards presbyterianism. He used his influence to obtain the vicarage of Polesworth for one Bell, subsequently one of the ejected ministers, and Richard Baxter wrote of Bell ‘that he needed no other testimonial of his loyalty than that he was pastor to Sir Francis, and this is equally a proof of his learning also’ (Palmer, Nonconformists' Memorial, iii. 347). On his father's death he inherited Nethersole House, in the parish of Wimlingswold. Although he fully sympathised with the king's cause, he took no part in the civil wars; but in the autumn of 1648 he endeavoured, in a series of pamphlets, to advocate a peaceful solution of the desperate crisis. On 15 Aug. 1648 he published, under the signature ‘P.D.,’ an address to the lord mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of London, entitled ‘Problems necessary to be determined by all that have or have not taken part on either side in the late unnatural War.’ On 17 Aug. 1648 he published ‘A Project for an equitable and lasting Peace, designed in the yere 1643 … with a Disquisition how the said Project may now be reduced to fit the present Conjuncture of Affairs … by a cordiall Agreement of the King, Parliament, City, and Army, and of all the People of this Kingdom among our selves.’ ‘A strong Motive to the passing of a General Pardon and Act of Oblivion, found in a Parcell of Problemes selected out of a greater Bundle lately published by P. D.’ appeared on 30 Oct. 1648; ‘Another Parcell of Problemes concerning Religion necessary to be determined at this time,’ on 3 Nov. 1648; and ‘Parables reflecting upon the Times, newly past and yet present,’ on 13 Nov. 1648.
On 11 Jan. 1648–9 Nethersole, throwing off the veil of anonymity, openly attacked John Goodwin's defence of the army's resolution to bring the king to the scaffold in ‘Ὁ Αὐτοκατάκριτος. The self-condemned, or a Letter to Mr. Jo. Goodwin, shewing that in his Essay to justifie the Equity and Regularnes of the late and present Proceedings of the Army by Principles of Reason and Religion, he hath condemned himselfe of Iniquity and Variablenesse in the highest degree untill he shall explaine himself in publicke.’ In a postscript (p. 8) Nethersole avowed himself the author of the earlier pamphlets issued under the signature P. D. Goodwin retorted in ‘The Unrighteous Judge,’ 25 Jan. 1648–9 [see Goodwin, John].
In 1653 Nethersole, after protracted litigation, finally compounded for his estates. About the same time he built and endowed, in accordance with his wife's desire, a free school at Polesworth, and he endowed the benefice. He died at Polesworth in August 1659. An inscribed stone in his memory was placed in the church in 1859. Nethersole married Lucy, daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Goodere of Warwickshire. She died on 9 July 1652, aged 58, and was buried in Polesworth Church. He had no children, and left his estates to his nephew, John Marsh, son of his sister Ann by Thomas Marsh of Brandred.
Nethersole's classical learning is well displayed in his political pamphlets. Verses by him are prefixed to Giles Fletcher's ‘Christ's Victory,’ 1632. Some letters from him to Henry Oxenden, dated in 1652 and 1654, are among Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 28001–28003. His despatches as secretary to the electress are summarised in Mrs. Green's ‘Life of the Princess Elizabeth.’
[Cole's Athenæ Cantab. in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 5877, f. 13; Hunter's Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 24492, f. 117; Hasted's Kent, iii. 712–13; Berry's Kent Genealogies, p. 104; Gardiner's Hist. of England; Strafford Papers, i. 177, 243; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1619–33; Dugdale's Warwickshire, ii. 1116; Green's Lives of the Princesses of England, v. 300 seq.; information kindly sent by the vicar of Polesworth.]
NETTER or Walden, THOMAS (d. 1430), Carmelite, was born at Saffron Walden, Essex, whence he is often called Walden or Waldensis. His parents' names were John and Matilda (Doctrinale Fidei Ecclesiæ, iii. 272). Shirley suggested that the date of Netter's birth was about 1380, and Blanciotti 1377. The known facts of Netter's life make it probable that the true date was a little earlier. Netter entered the Carmelite order at London, and was then sent to study at Oxford. He says himself that he was a pupil of the Franciscan William Woodford [q. v.], whom we know to have been lecturing at Oxford in 1389–90 (ib. ii. 310; Grey Friars at Oxford, p. 247, Oxford Hist. Soc.) It is therefore probable that Netter was a student at Oxford during these years; he eventually graduated as a doctor of divinity, and acquired a high reputation by his public disputations. He was ordained acolyte by John, bishop of Glasgow, on 19 Sept. 1394, and subdeacon by Robert de Braybroke, bishop of London, on 5 June 1395. Bale describes him as ‘most learned in the Holy Scriptures, and well instructed in Aristotelian philosophy’ (Harl. MS. 3838, f. 203 b). His
