abuses in the land; and had done more, had not an unfortunate arrow, shot out of a besieged castle in France, put a period to his life, anno Domini 1199. EDMUND, youngest son to king Edward the First by queen Margaret, was born at Woodstock, Aug 5, 1301. He was afterwards created earl of Kent, and was tutor to his nephew king Edward the Third; in whose reign falling into the tempest of false, injurious, and wicked envy, he was beheaded, for that he never dissembled his natural brotherly affection toward his brother deposed, and went about when he was (God wot) murdered before (not knowing so much) to enlarge him out of prison, persuaded thereunto by such as covertly practised his destruction. He suffered at Winchester, the nineteenth of March, in the fourth of Edward the Third. EDWARD, eldest son of king Edward the Third, was born at Woodstock in this county, and bred under his father (never abler teacher met with an apter scholar) in martial discipline. He was afterwards termed the black prince; not so called from his complexion, which was fair enough (save when sunburnt in his Spanish expedition); not from his conditions, which were courteous (the constant attender of valour); but from his achievements, dismal and black, as they appeared to the eyes of his enemies, whom he constantly overcame. But grant him black in himself, he had the fairest lady to his wife this land and that age did afford; viz. Joane countess of Salisbury and Kent, which, though formerly twice a widow, was the third time married unto him. This is she whose Garter (which now flourisheth again) hath lasted longer than all the wardrobes of the kings and queens in England since the Conquest, continued in the knighthood of that order. This prince died, before his father, at Canterbury, in the 46th year of his age, anno Domini 1376; whose maiden success attended him to the grave, as never foiled in any undertakings. Had he survived to old age, in all probabilities the wars between York and Lancaster had been ended before begun; I mean, prevented in him, being a person of merit and spirit, and in seniority before any suspicion of such divisions. He left two sons; Edward, who died at seven years of age, and Richard, afterwards king, second of that name; both born in France, and therefore not coming within the compass of our catalogue. THOMAS of Woodstock, youngest son of king Edward the Third and queen Philippa, was surnamed of Woodstock, from the place of his nativity. He was afterward earl of Buckingham and duke of Gloucester; created by his nephew king Richard the Second, who summoned him to the Parliament by the title of The King's loving Uncle. He married Isabel, one of the co-heirs of Humphrey Bohun earl of Essex, in whose right he became constable of England; a dangerous place, when it met with an unruly manager thereof. But this Thomas was only guilty of ill-tempered loyalty, loving the king well, but his own humours better; rather wilful than hurtful; and presuming on the old maxim, " Patruus est loco parentis," (an uncle is in the place of a father.) He observed the king too nearly, and checked him too sharply; whereupon he was conveyed to Calais, and there strangled; by whose death king Richard, being freed from the causeless fear of an uncle, became exposed to the cunning plots of his cousin german Henry duke of Lancaster, who at last deposed him. This Thomas founded a fair college at Pleshy in Essex, where his body was first buried with all solemnity, and afterward translated to Westminster. ANNE BEAUCHAMP was born at Caversham in this county.* Let her pass for a princess (though not formally) reductively, seeing so much of history dependeth on her; as, Elevated.-1. Being daughter (and in fine sole heir) to Richard Beauchamp, that most martial earl of Warwick. 2. Married to Richard Nevil earl of Sarisbury and Warwick; commonly called The Make-king; and may not she then, by a courteous proportion, be termed The Make-queen? 3. In her own and husband's right she was possessed of one hundred and fourteen manors in several shires. 4. Isabel, her eldest daughter, was married to George duke of Clarence; and Anne, her younger, to Edward prince of Wales, son of Henry the Sixth, and afterwards to king Richard the Third. Depressed.-1. Her husband being killed at Barnet fight, all of her land by act of Parliament was settled on her two daughters, as if she had been dead in nature. 2. Being attainted (on her husband's score) she was forced to fly to the Sanctuary at Beaulieu in Hampshire. 3. Hence she got herself privately into the north, and there lived a long time in a mean condition. 4. Her want was increased after the death of her two daughters, who may be presumed formerly to have secretly supplied her. I am not certainly informed when a full period was put by death to these her sad calamities. SAINTS. St. FRIDESWIDE was born in the city of Oxford, being daughter to Didan the duke thereof. It happened that one Algarus, a noble young man, solicited her to yield to his lust, from whom she miraculously escaped, he being of a sudden struck blind. If so, she had better success than as good a Dugdale, in his Illustration of Warwickshire, p 334. + Polydore Vergil, 1. v. Histor. Breviar. sec. usum Sarum. MS. Robert Buck. virgin, the daughter to a greater and better father; I mean, Thamar daughter of king David, not so strangely secured from the lust of her brother.* She was afterwards made abbess of a monastery, erected by her father in the same city, which since is become part of Christchurch, where her body lieth buried. It happened in the first of queen Elizabeth, that the scholars of Oxford took up the body of the wife of Peter Martyr, who formerly had been disgracefully buried in a dunghill, and interred it in the tomb with the dust of St. Frideswide. Sanders addeth, that they wrote this inscription (which he calleth impium epitaphium): "Hic requiescit Religio cum Superstitione:+" though, the words being capable of a favourable sense on his side, he need not have been so angry. However, we will rub up our old poetry, and bestow another upon them. In tumulo fuerat Petri qua Martyris uxor, "Entomb'd with Frideswide, deem'd a sainted maid, And reason good, for women chaste in mind The best of virgins come no whit behind. Should Popery return, (which God forefend !) Yet was there more than eight hundred years betwixt their several deaths; Saint Frideswide dying anno 739, and is remembered in the Romish calendar on the nineteenth day of October. St. EDWOLD was younger brother to St. Edmund, king of the East-Angles, so cruelly martyred by the Danes; and, after his death, that kingdom not only descended to him by right, but also by his subjects' importunity was pressed upon him. But he declined both, preferring rather a solitary life and heavenly contemplation; in pursuance whereof, he retired to Dorchester in this county, and to a monastery called Corn-house therein, where he was interred, and had in great veneration for his reputed miracles after his death, which happened anno Domini 871. St. EDWARD the CONFESSOR was born at Islip in this county, and became afterwards king of England, sitting on the throne for many years, with much peace and prosperity;§ famous for the first founding of Westminster Abbey, and many other worthy achievements. 2 Sam. xiii. 14. + Sanders, de Schismate Anglicanâ, 1. iii. p. 344. Gul. Malmesbury de Pont. Angl. hac die Herbert. in Fest. S. S. § Speed's Chronicle, in the Life of this King. By Bale he is called Edvardus simplex, which may signify either shallow or single; but (in what sense soever he gave it) we take it in the latter. Sole and single he lived and died, never carnally conversing with St. Edith his queen: which is beheld by different persons according to their different judgments (coloured eyes make coloured objects); some pitying him for defect or natural impotence; others condemning him, as affecting singleness, for want of conjugal affection; others applauding it, as a high piece of holiness and perfection. Sure I am, it opened a door for foreign competitors, and occasioned the conquest of this nation. He died anno Domini 1065, and lieth buried in Westminster Abbey. CARDINALS. [S. N.] ROBERT PULLEN, or Pullain, or Pulley, or Puley, or Bullen, or Pully; for thus variously is he found written.* Thus the same name, passing many mouths, seems in some sort to be declined into several cases; whereas indeed it still remaineth one and the same word, though differently spelled and pronounced. In his youth he studied at Paris; whence he came over into England in the reign of king Henry the First, when learning ran very low in Oxford, the university there being first much afflicted by Harold the Dane, afterwards almost extinguished by the cruelty of the Conqueror. Our Pullen improved his utmost power with the king and prelates for the restoring thereof; and, by his praying, preaching, and public reading, gave a great advancement thereunto.† Remarkable is his character in the Chronicle of Osney: "Robertus Pulenius Scripturas Divinas quæ in Angliâ obsolverant apud Oxoniam legere cepit," (Robert Pullen began to read at Oxford the Holy Scriptures, which were grown out of fashion in England.) The fame of his learning commended him beyond the seas; and it is remarkable, that whereas it is usual with popes (in policy) to unravel what such weaved who were before them, three successive popes continued their love to, and increased honours upon him: 1. Innocent courteously sent for him to Rome. 2. Celestine created him cardinal of St. Eusebius, anno 1144. 3. Lucius the second made him chancellor of the Church of Rome. He lived at Rome in great respect; and although the certain date of his death cannot be collected, it happened about the year of our Lord 1150. [S. N.] THOMAS JOYCE, or Jorce, a Dominican, proceeded doctor of divinity in Oxford; and, living there, he became pro Bishop Godwin, in his Catalogue of Cardinals. vincial of his order, both of England and Wales.* From this place, without ever having any other preferment, Pope Clement the fifth created him cardinal of St. Sabine; though some conceive he wanted breadth proportionable to such an height of dignity, having no other revenue to maintain it, cardinals being accounted king's fellows in that age. Others admire at the contradiction betwixt friars' profession and practice, that persons so low should be so high, so poor so rich; which makes the same men to suspect, that so chaste might be so wanton. He is remarkable on this account, that he had six brethren all Dominicans.† I will not listen to their comparison, who resemble them to the seven sons of Sceva,‡ which were exorcists; but may term them a week of brethren, whereof this rubricated cardinal was the Dominical letter. There want not those who conceive great virtue in the youngest son of these seven, and that his touch was able to cure the Pope's evil. This Thomas, as he had for the most time lived in Oxford, so his corpse by his own desire was buried in his convent therein. He flourished anno Domini 1310. PRELATES. HERBERT LOSING was born in Oxford, his father being an abbot, seeing wives in that age were not forbidden the clergy; though possibly his father turned abbot of Winchester in his old age, his son purchasing that preferment for him. But this Herbert bought a better for himself, giving nineteen hundred pounds to king William Rufus for the bishopric of Thetford.§ Hence the verse was made, “Filius est præsul, pater abbas, Simon uterque; meaning that both of them were guilty of simony, a fashionable sin in the reign of that king, preferring more for their gifts than their endowments. Reader, pardon a digression. I am confident there is one, and but one, sin frequent in the former age, both with clergy and laity, which in our days our land is not guilty of, and may find many compurgators of her innocence therein; I mean the sin of simony: seeing none in our age will give anything for church-livings; partly because the persons presented thereunto have no assurance to keep them, partly because of the uncertainty of tithes for their maintenance. But whether this our age hath not added in sacrilege what it wanteth in simony, is above my place to discuss, and more above my power to decide. To return to our Herbert, whose character hitherto cannot entitle him to any room in our Catalogue of WORTHIES; but Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iv. num. 89; and Pits, in anno 1311. † Idem, ut prius. Acts xix. 14. § Godwin's Catalogue of the Bishops of Norwich, p. 481. |