Philip Vincent

Relatively little is known of the "P. Vincent" who published two works in London in 1637-38.

The first work published was [http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/35/ "A True Relation of the Late Battell fought in New England, between the English, and the Salvages: With the present state of things there."] (London, 1637), an account of the Mystic Massacre of the Pequot War. It is uncertain whether Vincent was present at the events in America he described or got his information from an informant. This work proved fairly popular and was reissued twice the following year. It is attributed to Vincent on the basis of the Latin poem "Ad Lectorem" ("To the Reader"), which is signed "P. Vincentius."

Another work bearing the signature “P. Vincent” was published around the same time: "The lamentations of Germany, wherein, as in a glasse, we may behold her miserable condition, composed by Dr Vincent, Theo." (London, 1638). This is an extended and gruesome illustrated account of atrocities committed during the ongoing religious wars in Germany.

The author of these works may have been the Philip Vincent who was baptized in 1600 at Conisborough, Yorkshire, and educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge. This same Philip Vincent was censured and warned against practicing medicine, 6 September 1639 [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=17894 See "Physicians and Irregular Medical Practitioners in London 1550-1640" (2004)] .

Source: Troy O. Bickham, ‘Vincent, Philip (bap. 1600?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.library.unl.edu:80/view/article/28313, accessed 7 Aug 2007]