Henry Care (1646–1688)

CARE, HENRY (1646–1688), political writer and journalist, affected to be a royalist in 1670, when he published a book entitled 'Female Pre-eminence,' with a fulsome dedication to Queen Catherine. He is probably the Henry Care, 'student in physick and astrology,' who brought out a translation of a medical work in 1679. Care edited a paper called the 'Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome,' when, according to Wood, he was deeply engaged by the fanatical party, after the popish plot broke out in 1678, to write against the Church of England and the members thereof, then by him and his party supposed to be deeply enclined towards popery, &c.' He was tried at Guildhall, 2 July 1680, on an information against him as the author of this journal, and more particularly for a clause against the lord chief justice, Scroggs, who himself sat as judge at the trial. The jury found him guilty, and Care was prohibited from printing his journal. But these proceedings constituted one of the charges brought against Scroggs, who was removed from the bench some months later (Luttrell, Relation of State Affairs, i. 75), and Care continued to publish his journal. Care's last number of the 'Weekly Pacquet,' which extends to five volumes, is dated 13 July 1683, at which time he fell ill. In 1682 a difference had taken place between Care and Langley Curtis, the original publisher, when Care, who resided at the time in the Great Old Bailey, continued the work on his own account till he was seized with illness. But at the commencement of the quarrel, Curtis, not willing to give up a profitable speculation, employed William Salmon, a well-known and multifarious writer, to publish a continuation of the 'Pacquets,' and he did so from 25 Aug. 1682, on which day Care's fifth volume also began, till 4 May 1683. Langley Curtis, probably having the stock-in-trade in his own hands, added the fifth volume, by Salmon, to all the remaining copies, and consequently Care's fifth volume is rarely met with.

Wood thus sums up the little that is known of the subsequent career of Care: his 'breeding,' he contemptuously remarks, 'was in the nature of a petty fogger, a little despicable wretch, and one that was afterwards much reflected upon for a poor snivelling fellow in the “Observators”, published by Roger l'Estrange, which Care, after all his scribbles against the papists and the men of the church of England, was, after King James II came to the crown, drawn over so far by the Roman catholic party, for bread and money sake and nothing else, to write on their behalf, and to vindicate their proceedings against the men of the church of England in his “Mercuries,” which weekly came out, entitled “Public Occurrences truly stated.” The first of which came out 21 Feb. 1687–8, and were by him continued to the time of his death, which happening 8 Aug. 1688, aged 42, he was buried in the yard belonging to the Blackfryers church, in 'London, with this inscription nailed to his coffin, "Here lies the ingenious Mr. Henry Care, who died, &c."

His works are: 1. 'Female Pre-eminence,' translated from the Latin of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, London, 1670. 2. 'Speculum Galliæ; or, a New Survey of the French Court and Camp,'London, 1673, 8vo. 3. 'The Jewish Calendar explained,' London, 1674, 8vo. 4. 'Practical Physick,' by Dr. Daniel Sennert, professor at Wittenberg, translated by 'H. Care, student in physick and astrology,' London, 1676, 8vo. 5. 'A Pacquet of Advice from Rome,' London, 1678–9, 4to; continued as 'The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome,' 1679–83. 'An Abstract, with improvements,' of the ‘Weely Pacguet of Advice from Rome’ was published ‘by several gent1emen,’ said to be dissenting teachers (Wood, Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, ii. 469 n.), under the title of ‘The History of Popery,’ 2 vols., London, 1786–6, 4to; a German translation was published under the title of ‘Unpartheiische Historie des Papetthums, herausgegeben von F. E. Rambach,' 1766. 6. ‘History of the Papists’ Plots,’ London, 1681, 8vo. 7. ‘Utrum horum; or, the Articles of the Church of England recited and compared with the doctrines of those called Presbyterians and the tenets of the Church of Rome,’ London, 1682, 8vo, 8. ‘The Darkness of Atheism expelled by the Light of Nature,' London, 1683, 8vo. 9. ‘A Modest Enquiry whether St. Peter were ever at Rome and Bishop of that Church,' Loud. 1687, 4to. 10. ‘Animadversions on a late paper entitled, A. Letter to a Dissenter, upon occasion of his Majeaties late Gracious Declaration of Indulgence,' London, 1687, 410. 11. ‘The Tutor to true English. With an introduction to Arithmetic, London, 1687, 8vo. 12. ‘Draconica; or, an Abstract of all the Penal Laws touching matters of Religion and the several Oaths and Tests thereby enjoined, with brief observations thereupon,' 3rd edit., London, 1688, 4to. 13. ‘English Liberties; or, the Freeborn Subject’s inheritance, containing Magna Charta, &c. Compiled first by Henry Care, and now continued with large additions by W. N[e1son],’ 4th edit., London, 1719, 8vo. 14. ‘Mahometanism and Popery compared,' Addit. MS. 5960, ff. 62–87.

He also edited ‘The King’s Right of Indulgence in Spiritual Matters with the Equity thereof asserted by a Person of Honour and Eminent Minister of State, lately deceased' (i.e. Arthur Annealey, earl of Anglesea), London, 1688, 4to.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 469; Macaulay‘s Hist. of England (1858), ii. 218 n., 221; Luttrell's Hist. Relation of State Affairs, i. 50, 75, 453; Watt's Bibl. Brit,; Jones's Popery Tracts, 25, 68, 76, 90, 92. 265. 266; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 21; Notes and Queries (1st ser.), iii. 264; Timperley's Encyclopædia (1842), 556, 573.]

T. C.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p. 54
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line