OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Montacute, William de (d.1319)

​MONTACUTE, WILLIAM de, second Baron Montacute (d. 1319), son of Simon de Montacute, first baron Montacute [q. v.], and his wife, Aufricia, was summoned to serve against the Scots in 1301 and in 1304. In the latter year he was imprisoned in the Tower for treason. On 22 May 1306 he was knighted at Westminster at the same time as Prince Edward, whom he accompanied into Scotland, where he remained till next year. In 1311 he was again in Scotland, and in 1313 was placed in command of the fleet at Sandwich, and accompanied the king and queen to France to be present at the coronation of Louis X. Next year he was again in Scotland, and in 1316 was a commander in the expedition against Llywelyn ab Rhys (d. 1317) [q. v.], and shortly afterwards negotiated peace (Rymer, ii. 283, 288 ; Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, ii. 217 ; Parl. Writs, ii. iii. 1182 ; Cal. Rot. Pat.) ; the same year he was sent to negotiate peace with Scotland, and in 1317 succeeded his father as second Baron Montacute. Edward also made him steward of his household, and the Lancastrian chronicler calls him 'fautor mendacii ipso Petro [i.e. Gaveston] nequior.' The next two years he attended parliament as one of the 'barones majores,' and served in the Scottish wars. On 20 Nov. 1318 he was made seneschal of Aquitaine and Gascony, and governor of the island of Oleron ; Edward commended him to the king of France on his departure for Gascony, where he remained until his death at the end of October 1319 (Rymer, ii. 377-8, 380, 406). He married Elizabeth, daughter of Peter de Montfort, who afterwards married Sir Thomas de Furnivall ; his eldest son, William (1301-1344), is separately noticed. His second son, Simon de Montacute, studied at Oxford, and was on 29 Nov. 1318 recommended by Edward II to the pope's favour on the plea of poverty through being a younger son (ib. ii. 380) ; he became successively arch-deacon of Canterbury, bishop of Worcester in 1334, and bishop of Ely in 1337, and died on 20 June 1345 (Rolls of Parl. ; Murimuth, passim ; Godwin, De Præsulibus Angliæ, pp. 261, 443; Leland, Collectanea, i. 606, iii. 24 ; Le Neve, iii. 56, i. 334). A third son, Sir Edward Montacute, was actively the Scottish wars under Edward I.
[Dugdale's Baronage and Monasticon ; Rolls of Parliament ; Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II ; Collinson's Somerset ; Peerages by Burke and G. E. C.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Montagu, Edward (1755-1799)

​MONTAGU, EDWARD (1755–1799), Indian officer, born in 1755, was youngest son of Admiral John Montagu, and brother to Admiral Sir George Montagu and Captain James Montagu, all of whom are separately noticed. Educated at the Royal Academy of Woolwich, he went out to Bengal as an East India cadet in 1770. There being no commission vacant on his arrival, he was first placed in the 'select picket,' a military body composed of the cadets then present at Calcutta. On 16 May 1772 he was admitted into the Bengal artillery as lieutenant-fireworker, and by 24 Sept 1777 he had risen to the rank of first-lieutenant of artillery. He was attached to Brigadier-general Goddard's [q. v.] army during the Mahratta campaign of 1781, and was successfully employed against certain Mahratta forts on the Rohilcund border, on one occasion being severely wounded in the face by an arrow. In 1782 he accompanied Colonel Pearce's detachment, sent to join Sir Eyre Coote (1726-1783) [q. v.], then engaged against Hyder Ali and his French allies in the Carnatic, and in 1783 he commanded the English artillery in the siege unsuccessfully attempted by General Stuart of Cuddalore, a strong Carnatic fortress then held by the French. On the conclusion of the war in the Carnatic (1784), Montagu returned to Bengal. He was promoted to a captaincy on 13 Oct. 1784. He took a prominent part in the invasion of Mysore, conducted by Lord Cornwallis [see Cornwallis, Charles] in 1791. He superintended the artillery employed in the sieges of Nandidnig (captured 19 Oct. 1791) and Savandrug (captured 21 Dec. 1791). For his skill and vigour Montagu received special commendation from Lord Cornwallis. The war concluded in favour of the English in 1792. On 1 March 1794 Montagu was made lieutenant-colonel, being now third on the list of Bengal artillery officers. In the final war against Tippoo, sultan of Mysore (1799), Montagu, as commander of the Bengal artillery, accompanied the army under General Harris which was directed to invade Mysore from Madras. On 9 April 1799 Seringapatam, the Mysore capital, was formally invested. On 2 May Montagu, while directing his battery, was struck in the shoulder by a cannon-shot from the enemy's lines. He died from the effects of the wound on 8 May 1799.
[Philippart's East India Military Calendar; Beatson's View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun; Dodwell and Miles's Alphabetical List of Officers in the Indian Army; Cornwallis Corresp.]
G. P. M-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norwich, Robert

​NORWICH, ROBERT (d. 1535), judge, is said by Philipps (Grandeur of the Law, p. 55) to have belonged to the Norwiches of Brampton, Northamptonshire, but there is no authority for this statement (cf. Wotton, Baronetage, ii. 214; Baker and Brydges, Northamptonshire). In 1503 he was a member of Lincoln's Inn, where he was reader in 1518, duplex reader in 1521, and subsequently governor (Dugdale, Origines, p. 259). In February 1517 he was pardoned for being party to a conveyance without license, and in November 1518 was on a commission for sewers in Essex (Brewer, Letters and Papers, ii. ii. 2875). In February 1519 he was granted by Agnes Multon a share in the manor of Erlham, Norfolk, and in November 1520 was on a commission for gaol delivery at Colchester. Early in 1521 he was called to the degree of the coif, and in July was commissioned to inquire into concealed lands in Essex and Hertfordshire. Next year he was on the commission of peace for Devon, and in 1523 was made king's serjeant. From this time his name is of frequent occurrence in the year-books, and he was constantly employed on legal commissions (cf. Letters and Papers, passim). He also received numerous grants in reward ​for his services, chiefly in Essex and Hertfordshire, where he was in the habit of entertaining men of legal and other eminence. In 1529 Sir David Owen, natural son of Owen Tudor, bequeathed to him part of the manor of Wootton, Surrey. In July 1530 he was one of those commissioned to inquire into Wolsey's possessions, and, perhaps as a reward for zeal in this matter, he was on 22 Nov. raised to the bench as justice of common pleas, where he succeeded Sir Robert Brudenell as chief justice in the following January. He was not insensible to presents in his judicial capacity; for a correspondent of Lady Lisle, writing of a case which Norwich was about to try, declared, ‘If you send Lord Norwich a firkin of sturgeon, it will not be lost.’ He took part in the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and was denounced as ‘false Norwyge’ by a catholic partisan. He died early in 1535. His wife survived until 1556, when she died of a fever (Machyn, Diary; Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. i. 498).
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer and Gairdner, 1509–35, passim; Dugdale's Origines, pp. 47, 251, 259, Chron. Ser. p. 81, &c.; Rymer's Fœdera, ed. 1745, VI. ii. 175; Foss's Lives of the Judges, v. 225–6; Manning and Bray's Hist. of Surrey, ii. 149.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norwood, Richard

​NORWOOD, RICHARD (1590?–1675), teacher of mathematics and surveyor, born about 1590, was in 1616 sent out by the Bermuda Company to survey the islands of Bermuda, then newly settled. He was afterwards accused of having, in collusion with the governor, so managed that, after assigning the shares to all the settlers, eight shares of the best land remained over, for the personal advantage of himself and the governor (Historye of the Bermudaes, p. 104). His map was published in London in 1622, and the same year he married, in London, Rachel, daughter of Francis Boughton of Sandwich. In 1623 he patented lands in Virginia, but it does not appear that he ever went there. He is said to have resided at that date in the Bermudas (Brown, ii. 958). He may have made several visits to the islands, but according to his own statements he was, for some years before 1630 and after, up to 1640, resident in London, near Tower Hill, in pursuit of his calling as a teacher of mathematics. Between June 1633 and June 1635 he personally measured, partly by chain and partly by pacing, the distance between London and York, making corrections for all the windings of the way, as well as for the ascents and descents. He also, from observations of the sun's altitude, computed the difference of latitude of the two places, and so calculated the length of a degree of the meridian. Considering the roughness of his methods and the imperfections of his instruments, it is not surprising that his result was some 600 yards too great; but, even so, it was the nearest approximation that had then been made in England. During the civil war he seems to have resided in Bermuda, where he had a government grant as schoolmaster, and where, in 1662, he conducted a second survey. He was in England in 1667, probably only on a visit. He died at Bermuda in October 1675, aged about eighty-five, and was buried there.
His published works are: 1. ‘Trigonometrie, or the Doctrine of Triangles,’ 4to, 1631. 2. ‘The Seaman's Practice,’ 4to, 1637. 3. ‘Fortification, or Architecture Military,’ 4to, 1639. 4. ‘Truth gloriously appearing,’ 4to, 1645. 5. ‘Considerations tending to remove the Present Differences,’ 4to, 1646. 6. ‘Norwood's Epitomy, being the Application of the Doctrine of Triangles,’ 8vo, 1667. He had a son Matthew, who in 1672–4 commanded a ship carrying stores to Bermuda.
[The prefaces and dedications to his books give some indications of Norwood's career. Other authorities are Brown's Genesis of the United States; Lefroy's Memorials of the Discovery of the Bermudas, and Historye of the Bermudaes, ed. for the Hakluyt Soc.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norwych, George

​NORWYCH, GEORGE (d. 1469), abbot of Westminster, succeeded to that office upon the resignation of Abbot Keyton, 1462 (not upon his death, as Stanley says, Memorials of Westminster, p. 334). By 1467 he had so thoroughly mismanaged the affairs of the convent that he was obliged to consent to the transference of his whole authority, spiritual as well as temporal, to a commission, consisting of the prior, Thomas Millyng [q. v.], and several monks, and to live until his debts should be paid in some other Benedictine house, with a chaplain and a few servants, on a pension of one hundred marks a year. The debts amounted to nearly three thousand four hundred marks, due in part to the convent at large, in part to individual monks; and, in addition to extravagant expenditure, Norwych had sold the monastic woods and encumbered the revenue with promises of pensions. Moreover, if his other offences can be inferred from the restrictions laid by the commissioners upon his future action, he had heaped offices and money upon an unworthy monk, Thomas Ruston, had taken perquisites contrary to his oath, had interfered with justice, and presented to benefices before they fell vacant.
He died in 1469, but his place of burial is unknown.
[Widmore's Hist. Westminster Abbey, p. 116, and Appendix vii. from the archives of the abbey; Neale's Westminster Abbey, i. 90; Willis's Hist. of Mitred Parliamentary Abbeys, i. 206.]
E. G. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lenton, John

​LENTON, JOHN (fl. 1682–1718), musician, was sworn gentleman of the Chapel Royal extraordinary on 10 Nov. 1685 (Rimbault). He played the violin and flute, and was a member of the royal band from 1692 to 1718 (Angliæ Notitia).
Lenton wrote: 1. The music to ‘Venice Preserved,’ 1682, some manuscript parts of which are in the library of the Royal College of Music. 2. Songs in D'Urfey's third collection, 1685. 3. Catches in ‘Apollo's Banquet,’ pt. i., 1693. 4. ‘The Gentleman's Diversion, or the Violin Explained,’ 1694. 5. (In conjunction with Thomas Tollet) ‘A Consort of Music in Three Parts,’ 1694. This is probably the work described by Walther as instrumental trios by Lenton or Lenthon, published in Holland. 6. Airs in the tragedy ‘The Ambitious Stepmother,’ published by Walsh in 1701. 7. ‘The Useful Instructor for the Violin,’ being a second edition of ‘The Gentleman's Diversion,’ with an appendix and the airs omitted, 1702. Overture and act tunes to the following plays: 8. ‘Tamerlane,’ 1702; 9. ‘Fair Penitent,’ 1703; 10. ‘Liberty Asserted,’ 1704; 11. ‘Abra Muley,’ 1704 (library of the Royal College). 12. Additions and corrections to Playford's ‘Wit and Mirth,’ 1709. 13. Catches in ‘Pleasant Musical Companion,’ 1720. 14. Trio, ‘Awake, fair Venus’ (Egerton MS. 2013).
[Hawkins's Hist. of Music, ii. 770; Rimbault's Old Cheque-book of the Chapel Royal, passim; Chamberlayne's Angliæ Notitia, 1692–1718; Wood's manuscript Lives; Gerber's Neues Tonkünstler-Lexikon, pt. iii.; Husk's Catalogue; Walsh's Harmonia Anglicana; Post Boy, 1701; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, 1682–1710; cf. Sloane MS. 4051, f. 157.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leofric of Bourne

​LEOFRIC of Bourne (fl. 1100) is said to have written a life of Hereward [q. v.] in English. The sole authority for this statement is the anonymous writer of the ‘Gesta Herewardi,’ whose work is a tissue of legends and romances constructed in order to magnify the name of his hero. It is found on f. cccxx. sqq. of the ‘Cartulary of Peterborough Abbey,’ which now belongs to Peterborough Cathedral Library, and was compiled in the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries. The writer of the ‘Gesta’ states that he gathered facts from men who were living in Hereward's time, and if this were so he must have lived in the first half of the twelfth century. The English work of Leofric the deacon, Hereward's chaplain (presbyter) at Bourne (Brun), was his chief source, and he says Leofric was fond of collecting for the edification of his hearers all the acts of giants and warriors out of the fables of the ancients, or from faithful report, and of committing these to writing. Leofric was one of Hereward's chosen followers, and, although a monk, he was skilled in arms. He is praised for his astuteness in carrying out a plan for the release of Hereward when on his way from Bedford to Rockingham in the custody of Robert de Horepol.
The account of Hereward's career given in the ‘Gesta’ resembles rather that of the pseudo-Ingulph than that of the ‘Liber Eliensis’ (cf. Freeman, Norm. Conq. iv. 455, and note O O).
[Gaimar's Lestorie des Engles, ed. Hardy and Martin (Rolls Ser.), 1888, i. 339; Gesta Herewardi, pp. 373, 383, 402; see art. Hereward.]
M. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lepipre, Francis

Francis Le Piper in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​LEPIPRE (LE PIPER), FRANCIS (d. 1698), artist, son of Noel Lepipre, belonged to a family of some importance in Flanders, which had, however, settled in England, and owned property at Canterbury. His father made a large fortune as a merchant, and gave Lepipre a liberal education, but he showed a genius for art, and devoted himself to drawing. Having no need to earn his livelihood, he drew for his amusement, selecting subjects of a humorous or comical nature. His memory was so good that he could draw exact likenesses of any one whom he had only passed in the street. He was of a genial nature, fond of the bottle and good living, and a great favourite among his friends. Some of his best drawings were made for taverns, such as the Mitre in Stocks Market and the Bell in Westminster. Lepipre travelled much on the continent, and his close study of the works of the great painters rendered him an excellent draughtsman. He once extended his travels as far as Cairo in Egypt. He drew landscapes and humorous compositions and caricatures, and frequently etched subjects on silver plates for his friends, who used them as lids to their tobacco-boxes. Lepipre painted twelve small pictures of scenes in ‘Hudibras,’ which are very similar to the set engraved by William Hogarth [q. v.] Some of the heads in Sir Paul Rycaut's ‘History of the Turks’ were drawn by Lepipre and engraved by W. Elder. There are a few humorous drawings by him in the print room at the British Museum. Lepipre inherited some fortune at the death of his father, but at one time found himself considerably reduced in circumstances, and temporarily worked for Isaac Beckett the mezzotint-engraver. Late in life he took to modelling in wax, executing bas-reliefs in this manner with some success. After his mother's death he inherited further property, and indulged in free living again. A fever was the result, and through medical inexperience it proved fatal. He died unmarried in Aldermanbury in 1698, and was buried in St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey. Two portraits of Lepipre were engraved in mezzotint, one being ascribed to E. Luttrell; others were engraved for various editions of Walpole's ‘Anecdotes of Painting.’ He also was the central figure of a group painted by Isaac Fuller [q. v.] His brother, Peter Lepipre, was a merchant in London, and owned most of his brother's drawings. He married Sarah, daughter of Sir Gabriel Roberts, by whom he had a large family.
[De Piles's Lives of the Painters; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Nichols's Anecdotes of Hogarth; family papers of A. H. Frere, esq.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leofwine

​LEOFWINE (d. 1066), a younger and probably the fifth son of Earl Godwine [q. v.] and his wife, Gytha, is described as ‘nobilis’ in 1049 (Kemble, Codex Dipl. iv. No. 787), and about that date, or perhaps earlier, acted as governor of Kent (ib. No. 828, dated by the death of Archbishop Eadsige in 1050, and according to Norman Conquest, ii. 567, by the death of Godwine, bishop of Rochester, in 1046, but the latter date seems uncertain). Leofwine was not, however, earl, and no doubt acted as governor under his father's direction; for he must then have been quite a youth. On the outlawry of his family in 1051, he fled with his brother Harold [see Harold II] to Ireland, took part in Harold's raid on Somerset in the next year, and shared in his father's restoration. In 1057, the date of a rearrangement of earldoms, he probably became earl of the whole country over which it is certain that he afterwards ruled. His government extended over Kent, Surrey, Essex, Middlesex (with the exception of London and so much as pertained to it), Hertfordshire, and probably Buckinghamshire (Kemble, Codex Dipl. iv. Nos. 846, 858, 860, 864), though the administration seems to some extent to have been under the control of Harold (ib. Nos. 854, 855, 859). He appears to have accompanied Harold, then king, to the battle of Stamford Bridge (Norman Conquest, iii. 361 n.) At the battle of Hastings, on 14 Oct. 1066, he took his place beside the king under the standard, and fell fighting at the barricade in front of the English position almost at the same moment at which his brother Gyrth [q. v.] was slain. His death is represented in the Bayeux tapestry.
[Freeman's Norman Conquest, ii. 36, 153, 315 sqq., 419, 567, iii. 361, 484, iv. 34, 753, gives all that is known of Leofwine; Green's Conquest of England, p. 365; Kemble's Codex Dipl. iv. Nos. 787, 828, 846, 854, 855, 859, 860, 864 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Anglo-Saxon Chron. ann. 1051, 1052, 1066; Flor. Wig. i. 208, 227 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, p. 245 (Rolls Ser.); Vita Ædwardi, l. 528 (Lives of Edward the Confessor, p. 404, Rolls Ser.), where Leofwine is erroneously written Leofric; Orderic, p. 501 (Duchesne); Geoff. Gaimar, ll. 5265, 5344 (Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 827, 828).]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leoni, Giacomo

​LEONI, GIACOMO (1686–1746), architect, was a Venetian, and held the post of architect to the elector palatine. He settled in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, having probably been brought over by Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington, to assist in the publication of Palladio's ‘Architecture’ in English. The plates for the work were prepared afresh by Leoni. The book was published, London, 1715, 1721, 1725; the Hague, 1726 (in French); London, 1742. Leoni translated into English Alberti's ‘De re Ædificatoria,’ and published it with C. Bartoli's Italian translation, and plates of his own designs. It appeared as ‘The Architecture of Leon Battista Alberti,’ &c., in London in 1726, 1739, 1751, 1755 (the last edition is in English only). The books on painting and ​statuary were separately published (English and Italian) in 1741, with many of the plates drawn by Leoni. His first work was Bramham Park, near Leeds in Yorkshire, built for Lord Bingley, 1710, partly destroyed by fire in 1865. Moor Park, Hertfordshire, 1720, Leoni's greatest work, was built at great expense, on the site of the original brick mansion by Wren, for B. H. Styles, esq.; the wings with the chapel were taken down between 1789 and 1799. In 1721 he designed Queensberry House in Old Burlington Street for the Duke of Queensberry and Dover (rebuilt in 1790–2); in 1725 Latham House, Lancashire, for Sir Thomas Booth; in 1723–1732 the south front of Lyme Hall, Cheshire, for Peter Legh, esq., with alterations in the existing building; in 1730 Bold Hall, Lancashire, for Peter Bold, esq.; in 1732 Clandon Park, Surrey, for the Earl of Onslow; in 1740 Burton or Bodecton Park, Sussex, for R. Biddulph, esq.; and Moulsham Park, Essex, for Benjamin, earl Fitz-Walter, which was demolished about 1810. Leoni died 8 June 1746, aged 60, and was buried in Old St. Pancras churchyard. He left a widow, Mary, and two sons, John Philip and Joseph. He made no will, and appears to have died in poor circumstances.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dict. of Architecture; Walpole's Anecdotes (Wornum and Dallaway), pp. 767–8; Lysons's Environs, iii. 355, for inscription on Leoni's tomb; Langley's London Prices, 1748, p. xi. For descriptions and plans of buildings mentioned, see Allen's York, iii. 313; Neale's Seats, ii. v. 2nd ser. i.; Repository of Arts, 1825 p. 127, 1828 p. 126; Wright's Essex, i. 87; Dallaway and Cartwright's Western Sussex, ii. 283; Aikin's Manchester, pp. 316, 440; Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus (Woolfe), ii. 81–2 (and Gandon), iv. 30–1, 94–8, v. 50–5; Brayley's Surrey, ii. 60, iv. 66; Wheatley's Piccadilly, p. 74; Morris's Seats, v. 53; Morant's Essex, ii. 3; Twycross's Mansions, iii. 16–20, 27, v. 92–8; Ralph's Critical Review of Buildings, pp. 194–5; Admin. Act Book, June 1746.]
B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lerpiniere, Daniel

​LERPINIERE, DANIEL (1745?–1785), engraver, was born in England, probably of French parentage, about 1745. He was instructed by Francis Vivares [q. v.], whose manner he followed, and was afterwards employed exclusively by Messrs. Boydell, for whom he engraved some fine plates, chiefly landscapes, between 1776 and 1785. Among these were ‘The Young Herdsman’ and ‘Evening,’ after Cuyp; ‘The Molten Calf,’ ‘The Flight into Egypt,’ and ‘St. George and the Dragon,’ after Claude; six plates of rural amusements, after Loutherbourg; six British naval victories, after R. Paton; ‘Morning,’ after Pynacker; two views of London and three views in Jamaica, after G. Robertson; two Italian landscapes, after J. Taylor; and ‘Calm’ and ‘Storm,’ after J. Vernet. He also engraved some of the views in the third volume of Stuart's ‘Antiquities of Athens.’ Lerpiniere exhibited a few drawings and engravings with the Free Society of Artists between 1773 and 1783. He died at Walcot Place, Lambeth, in 1785.
[Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers (Armstrong); Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Dodd's Collections in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 33399.]
F. M. O'D.