OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chestre, Thomas

​CHESTRE, THOMAS (fl. 1430), was the author of an English poem on the Arthurian romance of 'The noble Knighte Syr Launfal,' freely adapted from the French. An early manuscript is in the British Museum (MS. Cott. Calig. A. ii.) Ritson printed the poem for the first time in his 'Ancient English Metrical Romances,' London, 1802, i. 170–215. In 1558 John Kynge obtained the Stationers' Company's license to print a book, containing 'Syr Lamwell,' and Laneham mentions a publication of the same name in his famous letter from Kenilworth. This work has been often identified with Cheetre's poem, but it is more probably a later ballad based on Chestre's poem, and printed in Messrs. Furnivall and Hales's edition of Bishop Percy's folio manuscript under the title of 'Syr Lambewell.' Chestre has been claimed as the author of other fifteenth-century romances, such as 'Emare' and the 'Earl of Tholouse,' but there is no evidence to support the conjecture.
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Ritson's Ancient Romances, i. 170-216, iii. 242-3; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry. ed. Haslitt, iii. 95-8, iv. 108; Arbor's Transcript of the Stationers' Reg. i. 79; Nichols's Progresses of Elizabeth.]
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chetham, James

​CHETHAM, JAMES (1640–1692), writer on angling, eldest son of Edward Chetham of Smedley, near Manchester, a kinsman of Humphrey Chetham the founder [q. v.], was born on 29 Dec. 1640. In 1681 he published anonymously 'The Angler's Vade Mecum, or a compendious yet full Discourse of Angling, by a Lover of Angling,' London, 12mo, an excellent work, which gives him the rank of an original writer on the sport. A second edition, enlarged, was published in 1689, with a preface dated from Smedley, near Manchester, and a third edition appeared in 1700. He died unmarried in 1692, and was buried in the Manchester Collegiate Church on 4 Dec. in that year. His will, dated 27 Nov. 1691, by which he left his property to his brother George, and disinherited his brother James, gave rise to long litigation.
[Chetham papers in Chetham Library, Manchester; Westwood and Satchell's Bibliotheca Piscatoria, 1883, pp. xvii, 59-60; Whatton's Hist, of Chetham's Hospital, 1833, p. 138, where he wrongly ascribes the Angler's Vade Mecum to a nephew of the author.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chester, Roger of

Identical with Ranulf Higden according to the ODNB.
​CHESTER, ROGER of (fl. 1339), almost beyond doubt the same person with Ranulf Higden [q. v.], the chronicler, like whom he is described as a monk of St. Werburg's at Chester, is said to have written a work entitled 'Polycratica Temporum,' in seven books, extending to the year 1314, with a supplementary book carrying on the history to 1339 (Bale, Script. Brit. Cat. v. 48, pp. 415 et seq.) A portion of this same book appears also to bear the title of 'Cosmographia' (Sir T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the early History of Great Britain and Ireland, iii. 376 et seq.) The 'Polycratica' is known to exist in a number of manuscripts, and it has generally been assumed to be the original from which Ranulf Higden borrowed the main part of his 'Polychronicon.' It appears, however, that in all the six manuscripts examined by Mr. Babington the ascription to Roger is added in a later band, and that one of these bears the heading of 'Historia Policronica;' while conversely the 'Polychronicon' of Ranulf Higden is sometimes entitled the 'Polycraticon,' or ​the 'Historia Policratica.' Roger's work ends in 1339, while Ranulf's, according to different copies, ends with the year 1327, or extends to various later dates. Ranulf died in 1363. It seems an irresistible conclusion that the name of the author of this chronicle, who is generally cited simply as 'Cestrensis' (e.g. by Wycliffe, De Civili Dominio, i. 40, p. 308), being omitted, the name 'Roger' was supplied by a later scribe in error for 'Ranulf.'
[Babington's Ran. Higden Polychron. vol. i. intr. pp. X, xv–xx, 1865, Rolls ser.]
R. L. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chesterfield, Thomas

​CHESTERFIELD, THOMAS (d. 1451 or 1452), canon of Lichfield, was the author of a chronicle of the bishops of Coventry and Lichfield, extending from the foundation of the see to 1347, and printed in Henry Wharton's ‘Anglia Sacra,’ i. 423–43 (1691). From the date at which the work terminates it was presumed by William Whitlocke, who continued it to 1559, that Chesterfield flourished about the middle of the fourteenth century; and this opinion was accepted by Wharton (l.c., præf. p. xxxvi), who thought to corroborate his view by an extract relative to him from Archbishop Stafford's register, forgetting that Stafford was primate from 1443 to 1452, so that the passage cited must belong not to 1347 but to 1447. It must have been in 1447, during a vacancy of the see of Lichfield, that Chesterfield was entrusted by Archbishop Stafford with the custody of the spiritualities of the bishopric. This is indeed known to be Chesterfield's date. He is styled indifferently by this name and that of Worshop or Wursop, from which it may perhaps be inferred that he belonged to a Worksop family settled at Chesterfield. According to Wharton (l.c.) and Tanner (Bibl. Brit. p. 176), ​he was a bachelor of laws, but of what university we are not informed. On 8 Feb. 1424–5 he was admitted prebendary of Tervin in the church of Lichfield (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 630); and on 31 Oct. 1428 he became archdeacon of Salop (ib. p. 674). The latter preferment he resigned before August 1431. Many years later, on 13 Jan. 1449–50, he was collated to the prebend of Moreton Magna in Hereford Cathedral (ib. p. 515). In an indenture of 1451, where he is called simply 'canon residentiary of Lichfield and prebend of Tervyn' (Bodl. Libr. Cod. Ashmol. 1521 b. i. 19), the sub-chanter and vicars of Lichfield Catnedral bind themselves to sing a mass and other anniversary exequies for Chesterfield on account of the great benefits he had done and procured for them and their successors, namely for giving them seventy pounds for the better building of the vicars' hall and repairing their other houses within the precinct of the seat of the vicarage within the close of Lichfield.' From this evidence it does not appear certainly whether Chesterfield was already dead or not; but he must have died some time before the spring or summer of 1452, when his preferments were filled up.
[Gery, in the Appendix to Cave's Historia Literaria, p. 48 b gives Chesterton as an alternative name to Chesterfield.]
R. L. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chester, Robert (fl.1182)

​CHESTER, ROBERT (fl. 1182), astronomer and alchemist, took his name from the place of his birth. Trained in the ordinary learning of his time, he turned aside from it to pursue mathematical studies, in which he gained a high reputation. Of his numerous writings Leland mentions 'De Astrolabio' as giving proof of an acute understanding. His conjecture that it was written during the reign of Richard II. is erroneous. A translation by Chester from Arabic into Latin of an alchemistical treatise by 'Morienus Romanus' bears the date 11 Feb. 1182. It exists in a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the Bodleian (Cod. Digb. 162, f.23) and has been printed several times, namely, at Paris in 1564 with the title 'Morieni Romani, quondam eremitae Hierosolymitani, de re metallica, metallorum transmutatione, et occulta summaque antiquorum medicina Libellus praeter priorem editionem accurate recognitus.' This, then, was not the first edition. Again, at Basle in 1593, in the collection 'Artis auriferae quam Chemiam vocant' (ii. 25-54), and at Geneva in 1711, in Manget's 'Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa' (i. 509). In a brief translator's preface 'Robertus Castrensis' admits the disqualifications for his task of youth and imperfect latinity. The Bodleian contains two other manuscripts assigned to Chester; the first is entitled 'De diversitate annorum ex Roberto Cestrensi super Tabulas Toletanas' (Cod. Digb. 17, f. 156, written about 1370); and the second is the second part of an astronomical work, 'que videlicet ad meridiem urbis Londiniarum iuxta Al Batem Saracensem summam per Robertum Cestrensem contexitur' (Cod. Savil. 21, ff. 86-95).
[Leland's Commentarii de Script. Brit. p. 430 (ed. 1709); Bale's Script Brit. Cat xi. 52; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 900; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Macray's Cat. Cod. MS. Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, pars mona; Bernard's Cat. Libr. MS. Angliæ et Hiberniæ, p. 300; information kindly supplied by Mr. R. L. Poole of Oxford.]
A. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dugrès, Gabriel

​DUGRÈS, GABRIEL (fl. 1643), grammarian, born at Saumur, alludes obscurely to his origin in his life of Richelieu, where, after stating that he came of a good family of Angiers, he says that his paternal uncle lived at the French court together with other relations, the MM. les Botrus, who were greatly favoured by the queen during Richelieu's ascendency over Louis XIII. Obliged to quit France on account of his religion in 1631, he came to Cambridge, where he gave lessons in French, and by the liberality of his pupils was enabled to publish his ‘Breve et Accuratum Grammaticæ Gallicæ Compendium, in quo superflua rescinduntur & necessaria non omittuntur,’ 8vo, Cambridge, 1636. Three years later he was teaching at Oxford, as appears from his ‘Dialogi Gallico-Anglico-Latini,’ 8vo, Oxford, 1639. Some of these dialogues are very amusing as giving a picture of the mode of living and manners of our forefathers. A second edition, enlarged, with ‘Regulæ Pronunciandi, ut et Verborum Gallicorum Paradigmata,’ appeared 8vo, Oxford, 1652; a third, without the additions, was issued 12mo, Oxford, 1660. Dugrès was also author of ‘Jean Arman Du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Peere of France; his Life, &c.,’ 8vo, London, 1643, which, although written, as he says, with ‘a ruffe pen,’ is an interesting tract. It was followed by a translation ‘out of the French copie’ of ‘The Will and Legacies of Cardinall Richelieu … together with certaine Instructions which he left the French King. Also some remarkeable passages that hath happened in France since the death of the said Cardinall,’ 4to, London, 1643.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dugdale, Richard

​DUGDALE, RICHARD (fl. 1697), the Surey demoniac, who was born about 1660, was the son of Thomas Dugdale of Surey, near Whalley, Lancashire, a gardener, and servant to Thomas Lister of Westby in Yorkshire. In 1689 (or according to another account about 1694), when about eighteen years of age, he went to the rush-bearing fête at Whalley, and getting drunk, quarrelled and fought with one of the revellers about dancing, an exercise in which he considered he excelled. On returning to his master's house he professed to have seen apparitions, and the following day, being unwell and lying down, he declared that he had been alarmed by the door opening and a mist entering, followed by various supernatural appearances. Becoming subject to violent fits, Dugdale left his situation and went home, when a physician was called in without benefiting him, as the fits continued and increased. Dugdale's father now applied to Thomas Jolly, the ejected minister of Altham, who with eight or nine other nonconformist ministers met almost every day at the house and endeavoured to exorcise the devil, which Dugdale affirmed to possess him, by prayer, examination, and fasting, but without result for at least a year. Meanwhile Dugdale's fame had spread abroad, and he was visited by several thousand persons, some dozens making declarations of his strange condition before Lord Willoughby and other magistrates. It was claimed for Dugdale that he foretold future events, spoke languages of which he was ignorant, and sometimes with two voices at once, was at times wildly blasphemous, and at others preached sermons, that he was possessed of extraordinary strength, and was sometimes ‘as light as a bag of feathers, and ​at others as heavy as lead,’ that he vomited a large hair broom, and did a number of other miraculous things. Baxter and Mather were so impressed that they wished to quote his case in their works on witchcraft; but Lord-chief-justice Holt is said to have discovered that the whole affair was an imposition. Dugdale seems to have been hysterical, and with the aid of his relations to have traded on the credulity of his visitors. A number of pamphlets were written, some denouncing him as a cheat, and others supporting the theory of his demoniacal possession. After the lapse of considerably more than a year the fits left him, and up to 1697, when he was last heard of, he had only had one unimportant return of them. A woodcut portrait is prefixed to Taylor's ‘Surey Impostor.’
[Noble's Granger, i. 379; Hist. of Whalley; The Surey Demoniack (1697); Taylor's Surey Impostor (1697); Middleton's Miraculous Powers, p. 232 (ed. 1749).]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Duhigg, Bartholomew Thomas

​DUHIGG, BARTHOLOMEW THOMAS (1750?–1813), Irish legal antiquary, born about 1750, was called to the Irish bar in 1775. He was for a long period librarian to King's Inns, Dublin, and also held the post of assistant-barrister for the county of Wexford. He died in 1813. He was married, and had one son, an officer in the army. Duhigg wrote: 1. ‘Observations on the Operation of Insolvent Laws and Imprisonment for Debt,’ republished Dublin, 1797. 2. ‘Letter to the Right Honourable Charles Abbot on the Arrangement of Irish Records, &c.,’ Dublin, 1801. 3. ‘King's Inns Remembrancer, an Account of Irish Judges on the Revival of the King's Inns Society in 1607,’ Dublin, 1805. 4. ‘History of the King's Inns, or an Account of the Legal Body in Ireland from its connection with England,’ Dublin, 1806. Duhigg also projected, but never published, ‘A Completion of King's Inns Remembrancer, giving an Account of the most Eminent Irish Lawyers, and a History of the Union with Ireland’ (History of the King's Inns, p. 614). In a letter from Dr. Anderson to Bishop Percy, 3 Sept. 1805 (Nichols, Illustrations of Literature, vii. 156), Duhigg is noted as ‘a writer of curious research and information,’ but as writing ‘a bad English style.’ In addition to his legal investigations he appears to have studied with much care the old Irish language.
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Duke, Edward

​DUKE, EDWARD (1779–1852), antiquary, born in 1779, was the second son of Edward Duke of Lake House, Wiltshire, by Fanny, daughter of John Field of Islington. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. 1803, M.A. 1807. He was ordained in 1802, and engaged in clerical work at Turkdean, Gloucestershire, and Salisbury. In 1805 he came into the estates and the mansion at Lake, which had been in his family since 1578. Duke devoted his leisure to antiquities. In company with Sir R. C. Hoare he explored the tumuli on his estates, and the antiquities there discovered were described in Hoare's ‘Ancient Wilts,’ and were preserved in the museum at Lake House. Between 1823 and 1828 Duke contributed to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ chiefly on Wiltshire antiquities. In his ‘Druidical Temples of the County of Wilts,’ London, 1846, 12mo, he maintained that the early inhabitants of Wiltshire had ‘pourtrayed a vast planetarium or stationary orrery on the face of the Wiltshire downs,’ the earth being represented by Silbury Hill, and the sun and planets, revolving round it, by seven ‘temples,’ four of stone and three of earth, placed at their proper distances. He also published ‘Prolusiones Historicæ, or Essays illustrative of the Halle of John Halle, citizen … of Salisbury’ (temp. Henry VI and Edward IV), vol. i. (only), Salisbury, 1837, 8vo. Duke was an active Wiltshire magistrate, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Linnean Society. He died at Lake House on 28 Aug. 1852, aged 73. He married in 1813 Harriet, daughter of Henry Hinxman of Ivy Church, near Salisbury, by whom he had four sons and four daughters. The eldest son, Edward, entered the church and succeeded to the estates.
[Gent. Mag. 1852, new ser. xxxviii. 643–4; Burke's Visitation of Seats and Arms (1854), 2nd ser. i. 63, 64; Hoare's Modern Wiltshire; Cat. Oxf. Grad.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clerke, Henry

1904 Errata appended.
​CLERKE, HENRY, M.D. (d. 1687), physician, son of Thomas Clerke of Willoughby, Warwickshire, was matriculated at Magdalen Hall on 20 April 1688, at the age of sixteen, obtained a demyship at Magdalen College, and was probationer fellow of that society from 1642 to 1667. He graduated B.A. on 4 Dec. 1641, M.A. on 21 June 1644. He was reader in logic at his college in 1643, bursar in 1653, 1656, and 1662, vice-president in 1655, and again in 1663. He seems to have submitted to the parliamentary visitors in May 1648. Meanwhile he had taken the degree of M.D. by accumulation on 27 May 1652, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1673. In 1657 he was appointed deputy lecturer in anatomy at Oxford. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 5 April 1658, and a fellow on 25 June 1669. He was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society on 7 Nov. 1667. Upon the death of Dr. Thomas Pierce in 1672 Clerke was elected president of Magdalen College on 5 March of that year. In order to fully qualify himself for the office he soon afterwards took orders. He was appointed vice-chancellor on 9 Oct. 1676. Clerke married Catherine, fourth daughter of William Adams of Charwelton, Northamptonshire, and had by her, who died in 1669 at the age of thirty-three, a son Henry, who died in the same year with his mother, and a daughter Catherine. His daughter, called by the college wits the Infanta, was married in 1682 to Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Shuttleworth of Gawthorp Hall, near Burnley, Lancashire, at that time a gentleman commoner of Trinity College. Their united ages did not exceed thirty-three years. Clerke continued ​president until his death, which occurred at the seat of his son-in-law on 24 March 1687, at the age of sixty-eight. He was buried with his ancestors at Willoughby. A monument was afterwards erected on the north wall of the north aisle of the church, which some forty years ago was restored at the expense of the college, 'who for many reasons justly considered the president to be a great benefactor.' In his will he bequeathed to the college 'the sum of fifty pounds, to be laid out in a gilded bowl with a cover, and to be placed upon the altar.' Clerke has some verses in 'Musarum Oxoniensium Charisteria,' 1638, and in 'Horti Carolini Rosa Altera,' 1640. A portrait of Clerke, copied from one at Gawthorp, is in the president's lodgings at Magdalen College.
[Bloxam's Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford; Munk's Coll. of Phys. (1878), i. 358-9; Foster's Lancashire Pedigrees, sub ' Shuttleworth.']
G. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.70 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clerk, John (d.1552)

​CLERK, JOHN (d. 1552), catholic writer, said to have been descended 'from famous and noble lineage,' was educated for a time in 'grammaticals, logicals, and philosophicals among the Oxonians,' though in what college or hall Wood was unable to discover. He then travelled on the continent, and became proficient in the French and Italian languages. In Italy he was the intimate friend of the eminent divine and statesman Richard Pace. 'All things were in a manner common between them, and what was by either read or observed was forthwith communicated to each other's great advantage.' On his return to England he obtained the post of secretary to Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk. At length he, like his patron, was accused of leze majesty, and committed to the Tower of London, where, to avoid public shame, as has been conjectured, he hanged himself in his cell with his girdle on 10 May 1552. Clerk, who was a steady adherent of the old form of religion, wrote:
* 'A Treatise of Nobility,' translated from the French, London, 1543, 12mo.
* 'Opusculum plane divinum de mortuorum resurrectione et extremo iuditio, in quatuor linguis succincte conscriptum. Latyne, Englysshe, Italian, Frenche,' London, 1545, 4to, 2nd edition 1547, 4to. Dedicated to Henry, earl of Surrey, K.G. Tanner notices a third edition in 1573, 4to. The English and French texts are in black letter, the Latin and Italian in Roman characters. This excessively rare book is printed in double columns, so that the four languages are apparent at one view.
* 'A Declaration briefly conteyning as well the true understandynge of tharticles ensuynge as allso a recitall of the capital errours against the same. Predestination, Ffree will, Faythe, Justification, Good woorkes, Christian libertye,' London, 1546, 8vo; dedicated in Italian to Thomas, duke of Norfolk.
* Meditations on death.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss) i. 203; Bale, Script. Brit. Cat. part. post. 109; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, 747; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 577, 587, 708; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 480; Cat. of the Huth Library, i. 325; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 184; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 379.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clerk, Josiah

​CLERK, JOSIAH, M.D. (1639–1714), president of the College of Physicians, was matriculated as a pensioner of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in December 1656, and took the two degrees in medicine, M.B. in 1661, M.D. on 3 July 1666. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 26 June 1671, a fellow on 29 July 1675, and was appointed censor in 1677 and 1692. On the death of Sir Thomas Witherley he was named elect on 16 April 1694, delivered the Harveian oration in 1708, was consiliarius in 1707, 1709, 1710, 1711, and 1712, and was elected to the presidentship, void by the death of Dr. Edward Browne [q. v.], on 13 Sept. 1708, being re-elected at the general election of officers on the 30th of the same month. Clerk 'being indisposed by many bodyly infirmityes, and also aged,' was unable to act; he accordingly resigned on 18 Dec., and Dr. Goodall was appointed on 23 Dec. 1708. He had been chosen treasurer on 16 April 1708, and retained that office as long as he lived. Clerk died at his house in Fenchurch Street in the autumn of 1714, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. In the annals of the college cited by Dr. Munk the date of Clerk's death is given as 8 Dec., which is erroneous. His will (reg. in P. C. C. 188, Aston) was proved on 14 Oct. He desired 'to be decently, tho' very privately, buried by night in the vault in St. Olave Hart Street Church, where my honoured mother and my children lye, if it may be done with conveniency.' By his wife Abigail, who survived him, he left a daughter Elizabeth, married to Richard Wilshaw. Clerk's portrait is at the college.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clerk, William

1904 Errata appended.
​CLERK, WILLIAM, LL.D. (d. 1655), civilian, received his education at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (LL.B. 1609, LL.D. 1629). He was admitted an advocate at Doctors' Commons on 23 Oct. 1629 (Coote, English Civilians, p. 78), and in 1639 he occurs as official of the archdeacon of London (Hale, London Precedents, p. 362). He was appointed one of the judges of the admiralty in 1651 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 389). His death occurred about August 1655.
He was author of 'An Epitome of certaine late Aspersions cast at Civilians, the Civil and Ecclesiastical Lawes, the Courts Christian, and at Bishops and their Chancellors, wherein the Authors thereof are refuted and repelled,' Dublin, 1631, 4to. This treatise is chiefly in answer to the preface of Sir John Davis's Reports, and to some parts of the case of præmunire reported by him.
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.70 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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