# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Patten, William (fl.1548-1580)

​PATTEN, WILLIAM (fl. 1548–1580), historian and teller of the exchequer, was eldest son and third child of Richard Patten (d. 1536), a clothworker of London. The father was a son of Richard Patten of Boslow, Derbyshire, and a nephew of William Patten, alias Waynflete, bishop of Winchester. William's mother, Grace, daughter of John Baskerville, died before her husband (Gregson, Portfolio of Fragments, pp. 190-4, and Chetham Soc. Publ. lxxxviii. 229). Patten apparently accompanied the expedition into Scotland in 1548, and the Earl of Warwick, lieutenant of the host, made him ‘one of the judges of the Marshelsey.’ William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burghley) [q. v.] went with him, and both, according to Patten, took notes day by day. Patten prepared an account of the expedition for publication, and obtained some aid from Cecil’s diary. The work appeared as ‘The Expedicion in Scotland of the most woorthely fortunate Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, uncle unto our most noble Sovereign Lord ye kinges maiestie, Edward the VI, goovernour of hys hyghnes persone, and protectour of hys graces realmes, dominions, and subjects: made in the first yere of his maiesties most prosperous reign, and set out by way of diarie by W. Patten, Londoner. Imprinted in London the last day of June, in the 2nd year of the reign of Edward VI.’ It was reprinted in Dalzell’s ‘Fragments of Scottish History,’ Edinburgh, 1798, and in Arber’s ‘English Garner,’ iii. 51-155, 1880. Patten’s narrative was largely quoted by Holinshed and was followed in Sir John Hayward’s ‘Life and Reign of Edward VI’ (see Lit. Remains of Edward VI, Roxburghe Club, pp. 215 seq.; Strype, Eccl. Mem. II. ii. 180).
In 1550 ‘William Patten, Esq.’ was granted by Thomas Penny, prebendary of St. Paul’s, the lease of the manor of Stoke Newington, and in 1565 the lease was renewed for ninety-nine years, to commence from Michaelmas 1576, at 19$^{li}$ per annum. This property Patten assigned about 1571 to John Dudley (see William Robinson, Stoke Newington, p. 28; and Ellis, Campagna of London, p. 109). While lord of the manor of Stoke Newington Patten repaired the parish church, which was in a ruinous state (1563) (ib. p. 199). Patten subsequently became one of the tellers of the receipt of the queen’s exchequer at Westminster, receiver-general of her revenues in the county of York custumer of London outward, and a justice of peace for Middlesex (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. xi. 101, 3 Jun 1563). On 19 Nov. 1580 (ib. cxliv. 32) he wrote to inform Walsingham as to the farming of the royal mines. No later mention of him is known (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 215; Hatfield Calendar, ii. 108).
By his wife Anne, a daughter of one of the heiresses of Richard Johnson of Boston, Lincolnshire, Patten had seven children. An engraving of Patten, by J. Mills, is in Robinson’s ‘Stoke Newington,’ p. 28.
A contemporary named Patten was apparently rector of Newington, on William Patten’s presentation (see State Papers, Dom. Eliz. Addenda, xi. 46), and was doubtless William’s nephew. He wrote anonymously ‘The Calendars of Scripture, whearin the Hebru, Chaldean, Arabian, Phenician, Syrian, Persian, Greek, and Latin names of nations, contreys, men, weemen, idols, cities, hils, rivers and of other places in the holly byble mentioned by order of letters, is set and turned in oour English toung,’ 1575. Tanner wrongly ascribes this work to the elder Patten. It was compiled from works by Francis Ximenes and John Arquery of Bordeaux (cf. printer’s preface, dated 19 April 1575).
[Authorities quoted; Strype’s Annals, II. i. 744, Eccl. Mem. II. ii. 280; Tanner’s Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Ames’s Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, i. 525; West’s Catalogue, p. 203; Halkett and Laing’s Dict. of Anonym. and Pseudon. Lit. i. 301; information from the Rev. Prebendary Shelford, formerly rector of Stoke Newington.]
W. A. S.