| AdminHistory | William Stafford: born at Rochford, Essex, 1554; educated at Winchester, where he was admitted scholar, 1564; New College Oxford, where he matriculated, 1571; elected Fellow, 1573; deprived of his Fellowship for absenting himself beyond his leave, 1575; apparently became a courtier; suddenly left London for Dieppe, 1585; returned, 1586; accused of involvement in a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1588; after his marriage in 1593 resided quietly in Norfolk for the remainder of his life; presented various books to Winchester College; died, 1612.
Apparently on the strength of Stafford's initials, and an allusion in the dedication, the authorship of 'A compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary complaints, of divers of our countrymen in these our dayes', by W S, gentleman (published by T Marsh, London, 1581), was ascribed to him; other attributions were also false, but Elizabeth Lamond in the 'English Historical Review', vi, pp 284-305, refuted Stafford's authorship, having discovered two extant manuscripts of the work, one belonging to William Lambarde (which she published, with critical apparatus, in 1893) and the other (formerly belonging to the Earl of Jersey) at the Bodleian Library (a third is among the Hatfield Manuscripts). The Lambarde manuscript was written before 1565; internal evidence suggests that the work was written in the summer of 1549, and it includes an account of inclosures, debasement of the coinage, and other causes of social distress under Edward VI. Lamond attributed the authorship to John Hales (d 1571); when the work was published in 1581, "W S" updated it, including a passage attributing price rises to the influx of precious metals from the Indies, and issued it as his own composition.
John Hales (or Hayles): miscellaneous writer, of Kent; not educated at university, but taught himself Latin, Greek, French, and German; profited by the dissolution of monasteries and chantries, but converted St John's Hospital, Coventry, granted to him in 1548, into a free school; for the use of his foundation he wrote 'Introductiones ad Grammaticam' (part Latin, part English); opposed to the enclosure of lands; among the six commissioners for the redress of enclosures named for the Midland counties, 1548; incurred the resentment of Dudley, then Earl of Warwick, and the inquiry was checked; as MP for Preston, Lancashire, attempted in Parliament to assist the poor by introducing Bills for rebuilding decayed houses, for maintaining tillage, and against regrating and forestalling of markets, 1548; all were rejected; on Somerset's fall Hales fled from England, and was at Strasbourg, 1552; on the accession of Mary his property was confiscated, and he retired to Frankfurt, where with his brother Christopher he engaged in religious contentions among the English exiles there; returned to England on Mary's death, and greeted Elizabeth with a written oration, which survives; fell into disgrace by interfering in the case of the marriage of the Earl of Hertford, publishing a pamphlet that the marriage was legitimate, and that the title to the crown of England belonged to the house of Suffolk if Elizabeth should die without issue; committed to the Tower, but soon released under Cecil's influence; under bond not to quit his house without royal license, 1568; died, 1571; buried in the church of St Peter-le-Poer, London. Publications included: 'Highway to Nobility', c1543; translated Plutarch's 'Precepts for the Preservation of Health' (London, 1543). |
| CustodialHistory | Part of the library of Charles Kay Ogden (1889-1957), linguistic psychologist, founder of the Orthological Institute and originator of the language system Basic English, whose interests in language systems are reflected in the subject matter of his collection, which comprised individual manuscripts and manuscript collections dating from the 14th to the 20th century. Formerly Ogden A18. |