OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Montfichet, Richard de

​MONTFICHET, RICHARD de (d. 1268), justiciar, was son of Richard de Montfichet, whom Henry II made forester of Essex. Richard the elder was son of Gilbert and grandson of William de Montfichet, founder of the abbey of Stratford-Langton Essex; he was with Richard I in Normandy in 1195, was sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1202, and died next year, leaving one son by his wife Milisent. The young Richard was then about ten years old, and was at first a ward of Roger de Lacy [q. v.] He appears as witnessing several charters in 1214, and on 21 June 1215 received charge of the forests of Essex as his by hereditary right. He had nevertheless acted previously with the baronial party, and been present at the meeting at Stamford in March. He was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the observance of Magna Charta, and as a prominent member of the party was ex-communicated by the pope in 1216. He supported Louis of France both before and after John's death, and fighting at Lincoln against William Marshal on 20 May 1217 was then taken prisoner. He returned to loyalty, and recovered his lands in the following October (Cal. Rot. Claus, i. 327). In 1223 his lands were again for a time seized by the king in consequence of his presence at a prohibited tournament at Blythe. In 1225 he was a justice-itinerant for Essex and Hertfordshire (ib. ii. 76), and in the same year was a witness to the confirmation of Magna Charta. In 1234 he was admitted to sit as a baron of the exchequer, and in 1236 again witnessed the confirmation of the charter. He was justice of the forest for nineteen counties in 1237, and from 1242 to 1246 sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, the counties in which his estates lay. Montfichet was one of the baronial representatives on the committee to consider the king's demand for a subsidy in 1244, and probably therefore had a share in drafting the remarkable scheme of reform of that year (Matt. Paris, iv. 362-8). He died ​ in 1268 without issue, and his estates passed to the children of his three sisters. Montfichet is of chief note for his share in the struggle for the charter. He was the last survivor of the twenty-five; his age probably prevented his taking any part in the later barons' war, which he outlived.
[Matthew Paris; Annales Monastici; Calendars of Close and Patent Rolls; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 438-9; Foss's Judges of England, pp. 412-14; Stubbs's Constitutional History, 175.]
C. L. K.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rokeby, Thomas (1631?-1699)

​ROKEBY, Sir THOMAS (1631?–1699), judge, second son of Thomas Rokeby of Burnby in the East Riding of Yorkshire, a Cromwellian officer, who fell at the battle of Dunbar on 3 Sept. 1650, by Elizabeth, daughter of Robert, and sister of Sir William Bury of Grantham, Lincolnshire, was born about 1631. His father, Thomas Rokeby, was eldest son of William Rokeby of Hotham in the East Riding, by his cousin Dorothy, daughter of William Rokeby of Skiers, and niece of Ralph Rokeby (d. 1595) [see under Rokeby, Ralph, (1527?–1596)]. ​Thomas Rokeby, the future judge, was admitted on 20 June 1646 a pensioner at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he matriculated in the following month, graduated B.A. in January 1649–50, and at Christmas following was elected to a fellowship at his college, which, however, he resigned in Michaelmas 1651. He had meanwhile, 17 May 1650, been admitted a student at Gray's Inn, where in June 1657 he was called to the bar, and in 1676 elected ancient. A strong presbyterian, and possessed of large estate and influence at York, he exerted himself on behalf of the Prince of Orange in November 1688, and on the change of dynasty was rewarded with a puisne judgeship in the common pleas, 8 May 1689, having received the degree of serjeant-at-law four days before. He was knighted at Whitehall on 31 Oct. following, and was removed on 28 Oct. 1695 to the king's bench. He was a member of the commissions which tried, 23–4 March 1695–6, Sir John Friend [q. v.] and Sir William Parkyns [q. v.] He died on 26 Nov. 1699 at his rooms in Serjeant's Inn. His remains were interred on 8 Dec. in the memorial chapel of his ancestor, William Rokeby [q. v.], archbishop of Dublin, in the church at Sandal, near Doncaster. His wife, Ursula, daughter of James Danby of New Building, Thirsk, survived him, and died on 10 Aug. 1737.
Rokeby was a competent judge, and a man of profound piety, as abundantly appears from his ‘Diary,’ edited with a memoir by Raine, in Surtees Society's Publications, vol. xxxvii. His portrait was painted by G. Schalken.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rokewode, Ambrose

1904 Errata appended.
​ROKEWODE, AMBROSE (1518?–1606). [See Rookwood.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.238 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 156 | i | 18 f.e. | Rokewode, Ambrose: for (1518? read (1578? |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Charles (d.1720)

​MURRAY, Lord CHARLES (d. 1720), Jacobite, was the fourth son of John, second marquis and first duke of Atholl [q.v.], by Lady Catherine Hamilton. Some time before the rebellion in 1715 he had been 'a cornet beyond sea' (Patten, History of the Rebellion, pt. i. p. 57). With his brothers, William, marquis of Tullibardine [q. v.], and Lord George Murray [q. v.], he, in opposition to the wish of his father, took part in the rising; and he held command of the fifth regiment in the army which crossed the Forth from Fife and marched into England. Like his brother Lord George he won the strong affection of his men by his readiness to share their hardships as well as their perils. While on the march he never could be persuaded to ride on horseback, but kept at the head of his regiment on foot in the highland dress (ib.) At the battle of Preston, Lancashire, 12-13 Nov. 1715, he commanded at the second barrier, at the end of a lane leading into the fields, and maintained his position with such determination that the enemy were driven off. Being taken prisoner after the defeat, he was treated as a deserter on the ground that he was a half-pay officer and being found guilty was condemned to be shot. He, however, pleaded that he had placed his commission in the hands of a relative before he joined the rebellion, and having on this account been granted a reprieve, he ultimately, through the intercession of his father, obtained a pardon (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. viii. p. 70). He died without issue in 1720.
[Patten's History of the Rebellion; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. viii.; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 150.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Alexander (1736-1795)

​MURRAY, ALEXANDER, Lord Henderland (1736–1795), Scottish judge, born in Edinburgh in 1736, was the son of Archibald Murray of Murrayfield, near Edinburgh, advocate. He was called to the Scottish bar on 7 March 1758, and succeeded his father as sheriff-depute of the shire of Peebles in 1761, and as one of the commissaries of Edinburgh in 1765. On 24 May 1775 he was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland, and at the general election in September 1780 was returned to the House of Commons for Peeblesshire. The only speech he is recorded to have made in parliament was in opposition to Sir George Savile's motion relating to the petition of the delegated counties for a redress of grievances (Parl. Hist. xxii. 161-164). He succeeded Henry Home, lord Kames [q. v.], as an ordinary lord of session and a commissioner of the court of justiciary, and took his seat on the bench with the title of Lord Henderland on 6 March 1783. ​ He took part in the trials for sedition at Edinburgh in 1793 (see Howell, State Trials, 1817, xxiii. 11 et seq.), and died of cholera at Murrayfield on 16 March 1795.
He married, on 15 March 1773, Katherine, daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick, Perthshire, bart., by whom he had, with other issue, Sir John Archibald Murray, lord Murray [q. v.] Henderland was joint clerk of the pipe in the court of exchequer, an office which, through the influence of Lord Melville, was subsequently conferred on his two sons. His 'Disputatio Juridica . . . de Divortiis et Repudiis,' &c., was published in 1758 (Edinburgh, 4to).
There is a small etching of Henderland in Kay's ' Original Portraits,' vol. i. (No. 99).
[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, 1832, p. 537; Kay's Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings, 1877, i. 243-4, 302, 307, 418, ii. 90, 346; Grant's Old and New Edinburgh, ii. 81, 255, 270, iii. 103-4; Foster's Members of Parliament, Scotland, 1882, p. 262; Burke's Landed Gentry; Scots Mag. xxiii. 224, xxvii. 448, xxxv. 222, lvii. 206.]
G. F. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Andrew (1597-1644)

​MURRAY, Sir ANDREW, Lord Balvaird (1597?–1644), minister of Abdie, Fifeshire, was the second son of David Murray of Balgonie, Fifeshire, by Agnes, daughter of Moncrieff of Moncrieff. He was educated at the university of St. Andrews, where he graduated M.A. in 1618. In 1622 he was presented by his grandfather, Sir David Murray, first viscount Stormont [q. v.], to the church of Abdie, to which he was admitted on 1 Oct. On the death of his grandfather in 1631 he succeeded to the baronies of Arngask and Kippo in Fifeshire. During the visit of Charles I to Scotland for his coronation in 1633 he was, on 15 June, dubbed a knight at Seton 'after dinner' (Sir James Balfour, Annals, iv. 367). He was the second of those who, in February 1638, signed the covenant in Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh (Gordon, Scots Affairs, i. 43) ; but, although his name was also inserted as supporting the libel against the bishops in the same year, he told Gordon of Rothiemay 'that he never concurred with the libel, and that some others there named knew not of it' (ib. p. 127). At a meeting of the assembly of the kirk in the same year, he, although not a member of it, exerted his influence to modify the attitude of the extremists towards the king's proposals; and his conduct was so favourably reported to the king by the high commissioner, the Marquis of Hamilton, that on 17 Nov. 1641 he was created a peer by the title of Lord Balvaird. He is the only minister of the church of Scotland on whom a knighthood or peerage was ever conferred. As a peer he attended a meeting of the convention of estates; but on 10 Aug. 1643 it was, 'after much reasoning,' decided by the assembly of the kirk 'that my Lord Balvaird should keep his ministry, and give over voicing in parliament, under pain of deposition and further censure' (Robert Baillie, Letters and Journals, ii. 91). On the death of the second Viscount Stormont in March 1642, Lord Balvaird succeeded to the lands, lordship, and barony of Stormont, but not to the title. He died on 24 Sept. 1644, aged about 47. By his wife Lady Elizabeth Carnegie, daughter of David, first earl of Southesk, he had five sons and three daughters. The sons were David, second lord Balvaird, who on the death of James, earl of Annandale, in 1658, succeeded to the titles of Viscount Stormont and Lord Scone; Sir Andrew Murray of Pitlochrie; the Hon. James Murray, M.D., a physician of some eminence; Sir John Murray of Drumcairne, who was appointed a lord of session in October 1681, and a lord of justiciary in July 1687, but at the revolution was deprived of all his offices; and the Hon. William Murray, an advocate at the Scottish bar. The daughters were: Catherine; Marjory, married to Sir Alexander Gibson of Durie, a lord of session; and Barbara, married to Patrick, lord Gray.
[Sir James Balfour's Annals; Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club); Robert Baillie's Letters and Journals (Bannatyne Club); Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. ii. 467; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 542.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Murray, Amelia Matilda

​MURRAY, AMELIA MATILDA (1795–1884), writer, born in 1795, was fourth daughter of Lord George Murray [q. v.], bishop of St. Davids, by Anne Charlotte (d. 1844), second daughter of Lieutenant-general Francis Ludovick Grant, M.P. (Burke, Peerage, 1891, p. 69). In 1805, when staying at Weymouth, she became known to George III and the royal family, and on her mother being appointed in 1808 a lady in waiting upon the Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth, she was frequently at court, where her brightness attracted much notice. One of the most intimate friends of her earlier years was Lady Byron. She became an excellent botanist and artist, and interested herself in the education of destitute and delinquent children, being an original member of the Children's Friend Society, which was established in 1830, and of kindred institutions. In 1837 she was chosen maid of honour to Queen Victoria. In July 1854 she started on a tour through the United States, Cuba, and Canada, returning home in October 1855 a zealous advocate for the abolition of slavery. Upon her proposing to print an account of her travels she was reminded that court officials were not allowed to publish anything savouring of politics. Rather than suppress her opinions, Miss Murray resigned her post in 1856, but was subsequently made extra woman of the bedchamber. She died on 7 June 1884 at Glenberrow, Herefordshire.
Miss Murray published:
* 'Remarks on Education in 1847,' 16mo, London, 1847.
* 'Letters from the United States, Cuba, and Canada,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1856. She had prepared, but did not publish, a series of sketches to accompany these volumes.
* 'Recollections from 1803 to 1837, with a ​Conclusion in 1868,' 8vo, London, 1868.
* 'Pictorial and Descriptive Sketches of the Odenwald,' 2 pts. oblong 4to. London, 1869.
[Miss Murray's Recollections; Times, 11 June 1884, p. 12.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waldhere

​WALDHERE or WALDHERI (fl. 705), bishop of London, succeeded Bishop Erkenwald [q. v.], who died in 693, and about 695 gave Sebbi [q. v.], king of the East-Saxons, the monastic habit, receiving from him a large sum for the poor. He was present at Sebbi's death. He received from Swaebraed, king of the East-Saxons, a grant dated 13 June 704 (Codex Diplomaticus, No. 52). In a letter written about the middle of 705 to Brihtwald [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, he speaks of a conference that was to be held in the following October at Brentford between Ine [q. v.], king of the West-Saxons, and his chief men, ecclesiastical and lay, and the rulers of the East-Saxons, to settle certain matters of dispute. He and Heddi [q. v.], bishop of the West-Saxons, had arranged that the meeting should be peaceful, and he was desirous of acting as a peacemaker at the conference; but the archbishop had decreed that no one should hold communion with the West-Saxons so long as they abstained from obeying his order relating to the division of their bishopric. Waldhere therefore laid his desire before Brihtwald, deferring to his decision. He must have died before the council of Clovesho in 716, at which his successor, Ingwald, was present. The grant to Peterborough attested by him and Archbishop Theodore [q. v.] is an obvious forgery (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an. 675, Peterborough).
[Bede's Hist. Eccles. iv. 11; Haddan and Stubbs's Eccles. Doc. iii. 274–5, 301; Dict. Chr. Biogr., art. ‘Waldhere’ by Bishop Stubbs.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waldegrave, William (fl.1689)

​WALDEGRAVE, Sir WILLIAM (fl. 1689), physician, was probably the second son of Philip Waldegrave of Borley in Essex (a cadet of the family of Waldegrave of Chewton), by his second wife, Margaret, ​daughter of John Eve of Easton in Essex, and, if so, was born in 1618. He received the degree of doctor of medicine of Padua on 12 March 1659, and was admitted an honorary fellow of the College of Physicians, London, in December 1664. He was created a fellow of the college, by the charter of James II, in 1686, but does not appear to have been admitted as such at the comitia majora extraordinaria of 12 April 1687, which was specially convened for the reception of the charter and the admission of those who were thereby constituted fellows.
On 1 July 1689 he was returned to the House of Lords by the college as a ‘papist.’ He was Physician to the queen of James II, and, as Bishop Burnet tells us, was hastily summoned, along with Sir Charles Scarburgh [q. v.], to her majesty in 1688, shortly before the birth of the Prince of Wales (the ‘Old Pretender’), when she was in danger of miscarrying. In 1691 434l. 10s. was owing to him from the estate of Henry, first baron Waldegrave (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. v. 446). He is there styled Sir William, but his name does not appear in Townsend's ‘Catalogue of Knights.’ He is believed to have died a bachelor.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Burnet's History of his own Time, ii. 475–9; information from Earl Waldegrave.]
W. W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waldegrave, Richard

​WALDEGRAVE or WALGRAVE, Sir RICHARD (d. 1402), speaker of the House of Commons, was the son of Sir Richard Waldegrave by his wife, Agnes Daubeney. He was descended from the Northamptonshire family dwelling at Walgrave. The earliest member of the family known, Warine de Walgrave, was father of John de Walgrave, sheriff of London in 1205. The elder Sir Richard, his great-grandson, crossed to France with Edward III in 1329 (Rymer, Fœdera, 1821, ii. 764), was returned to parliament in 1335 for Lincolnshire, and in 1337 received letters from Edward permitting him to accompany Henry Burghersh [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, to Flanders (ib. pp. 967, 1027). In 1343 he received similar letters on the occasion of his accompanying Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, to France (ib. iii. 866).
His son, Sir Richard, resided at Smallbridge in Suffolk, and was returned to parliament as a knight of the shire in the parliament of February 1375–6. He was elected to the first and second parliaments of Richard II and to that of 1381. In 1381 he was elected speaker of the House of Commons, and prayed the king to discharge him from the office; the first instance, says Manning, of a speaker desiring to be excused. Richard II, however, insisted on his fulfilling his duties. During his speakership parliament was chiefly occupied with the revocation of the charters granted to the villeins by Richard during Tyler's rebellion. It was dissolved in February 1381–2. Waldegrave represented Suffolk in the two parliaments of 1382, in those of 1383, in that of 1386, in those of 1388, and in that of January 1389–90. He died at Smallbridge on 2 May 1402, and was buried on the north side of the parish church of St. Mary at Bures in Essex. He married Joan Silvester of Bures, by whom he had a son, Sir Richard Waldegrave (d. 1434), who took part in the French wars, assisting in 1402 in the capture of the town of Conquet and the island of Rhé in Bretagne. He was ancestor of Sir Edward Waldegrave [q. v.]
E. I. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Torshell, Samuel

1904 Errata appended.
​TORSHELL or TORSHEL, SAMUEL (1604–1650), puritan divine, was probably identical with Samuel Torshell, born on 4 July 1604, the son of Richard Torshell, a London merchant taylor, who entered Merchant Taylors' school in 1617 (Robinson, Merchant Taylors' School Reg. i. 92). According to Richard Smyth, his mother was a midwife. Cole conjectures that he studied at Cambridge University (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 5882, f. 62). Torshell seems first to have preached in London, but before 1632 he was appointed by the Haberdashers' Company rector of Bunbury in Cheshire. Though always inclined to puritan views, he states that he was finally convinced of the inexpediency of episcopacy when he 'met with Mr. White's learned and serious speech against it in parliament.' When the custody of the two youngest children of Charles I was committed to Algernon Percy, tenth earl of Northumberland [q. v.], on 18 March 1643–4, Torshell was appointed their tutor. He afterwards became preacher at Cripplegate, London, and died on 22 March 1649–50.
He was author of: 1. ‘The Three Questions of Free Justification, Christian Liberty, the Use of the Law, explicated in a briefe Comment on St. Paul to the Galatians,’ London, 1632, 12mo. 2. ‘The Saints Humiliation,’ London, 1633, 4to. 3. ‘A Helpe to Christian Fellowship,’ London, 1644, 4to. 4. ‘The Hypocrite discovered and cured,’ London, 1644, 4to. 5. ‘The Womans Glorie: a Treatise asserting the due Honour of that Sexe. Dedicated to the young Princesse Elizabethe her Highenesse,’ London, 1645, 12mo; 2nd ed. 1650. 6. ‘The Palace of Justice opened and set to Veiw’ [sic], London, 1646, 4to. 7. ‘A Designe about disponing the Bible into an Harmony,’ London, 1647, 4to; reprinted in the ‘Phenix,’ 1707, i. 96–113. Torshell also published ‘A learned and very usefull Commentary upon the whole Prophesie of Malachy, by Richard Stock. Whereunto is added an Exercitation upon the same Prophesie of Malachy, by Samuel Torshell,’ London, 1641, 12mo; reprinted by Dr. A. B. Grosart.
E. I. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.267 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 71 | i | 18-16 f.e. | Torshell, Samuel: for Cole conjectures . . . . 5882, f. 62). read He matriculated from Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1620-1, graduating B.A. in 1624-5 and M.A. in 1628. |
| | | 15 f.e. | for in London, read in London. He was curate of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange in February 1628-9 (Hennessy, p. 280) |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Toto, Anthony

​TOTO, ANTHONY (fl. 1518–1551), painter, was a native of Florence, where his father, Toto del Nunziata, was an artist and image-maker of some note. Toto was a pupil of the painter Ghirlandajo, a friend of his father, at the same time as the celebrated painter Perino del Vaga. In 1519 Toto was engaged at Florence by the sculptor Pietro Torrigiano [q. v.] to come to England and work on a projected tomb for Henry VIII and his queen. The tomb was never executed, but Toto entered the service of the king as painter, and his name usually appears in conjunction with that of Bartolommeo Penni, another Florentine painter. Their names frequently occur together among the payments recorded in the account-books of the royal household. It is stated by Vasari that Toto executed numerous works for the king of England, some of which were in architecture, more especially the principal palace of that monarch, by whom he was largely remunerated. It is probable that this ‘principal palace’ was Nonesuch Palace, near Cheam in Surrey, erected by Henry VIII about this time, which is known to have been adorned on the outside with statues and paintings. Toto received letters of naturalisation and free denization in June 1538, in which year he and Helen, his wife, received a grant of two cottages at Mickleham in Surrey, and in 1543 he succeeded Andrew Wright as the king's serjeant-painter. Payments for various services occur in the accounts of the royal household to Toto, including in 1540 a payment ‘to Anthony Tote's servant that brought the king a table of the story of King Alexander,’ and another to the same servant, who brought to the king at Hampton Court ‘a depicted table of Calomia.’ Toto lived in the parish of St. Bridget, London, as is shown by a summons issued to him for disobeying the orders of the Painters' Company in 1546. His name occurs in the household of Edward VI as late as 1551. He is perhaps the ‘Mr. Anthony, the kynge's servaunte of Grenwiche,’ mentioned in the will of Hans Holbein [q. v.] in 1543.
[Nichols's Notices of the Contemporaries and Successors of Holbein (Archæologia, vol. xxxix.); Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Rymer's Fœdera; Household Books of Henry VIII and Edward VI; Vasari's Lives of the Painters, ed. Milanesi; Blomfield's Hist. of Renaissance Architecture in England; Archæol. Journal, September 1894.]
L. C.