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

Sir John Rochford in the ODNB.
​ROCHFORD, Sir JOHN de (fl. 1390–1410), mediæval writer, was apparently son of Saer de Rochford of Holland in Lincolnshire, and, according to Pits, after receiving a good education in England, studied in France and Italy. In 1381 he served on a commission to inquire into certain disturbances at Boston (Cal. Patent Rolls, Richard II, ed. 1895, p. 421). Before 1386 he was knighted, and in that year was placed on commissions in the same county to raise sums lent to the king, and to supervise the purchase of arms and horses. In the following year he was sworn to support the lords appellants. On 26 Sept. 1405 he was summoned to meet Henry IV at Coventry, and accompany him on his expedition to Wales. But his interests lay chiefly in literary work. In 1406 he completed his ‘Notabilia extracta per Johannem de Rochefort, militem, de viginti uno libris Flavii Josephi antiquitatis Judaice;’ it is extant in All Souls' College MS. xxxvii. ff. 206 et seqq. He also compiled a ‘Tabula super Flores Storiarum facta per Johannem Rochefort, militem, distincta per folia,’ contained in All Souls' College MS. xxxvii. ff. 157 et seqq. It was also extant, with an ‘Extractum Chronicarum Cestrensis Ecclesiæ per Johannem Rocheford, a Christo nato ad annum 1410,’ in Cotton MS. Vitellius D. xii. 1, which is now lost. The ‘Tabula’ is merely an index of the ‘Flores Historiarum’ of Matthew of Westminster [q. v.], the authorship of which has been erroneously ascribed to Rochford. Pits also attributes to Rochford ‘Ex Ranulphi Chronico librum unum,’ and says that he translated many works, but he does not specify them.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rochfort, Simon

​ROCHFORT, SIMON (d. 1224), bishop of Meath, was the first Englishman who held that see, to which he was consecrated in 1194 (Cotton, Fasti Eccles. Hibern. iii. 111). He was one of the judges appointed by Innocent III in the famous suit for possession of the body of Hugh de Lacy, fifth baron Lacy and first lord of Meath [q. v.], between the monks of Bective in Meath and the canons of St. Thomas's, Dublin. He gave sentence in favour of the latter in 1205 (Reg. St. Thomas, Dublin, pp. 348–50, Rolls Ser.) Bishop Simon founded a house of regular canons at Newtown, near Trim, in 1206, and ultimately erected the church into the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, forsaking the old cathedral of Clonard (Annals of Clonard ap. Cogan, Diocese of Meath, i. 20, 71). At Newtown he held a synod in 1216, of which an account is extant (Wilkins, Concilia Magnæ Brit. i. 547, ed. 1737). He alloted vicar's portions to the churches in his diocese, in which his work was valuable (Ware, Works on Ireland, i. 141, ed. 1739). He died in 1224 (Chartularies, &c., of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, ii. 288, Rolls Ser.), and was buried in the church at Newtown.
[Authorities cited in the text.]
A. M. C.-e.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rodd, Edward Hearle

​RODD, EDWARD HEARLE (1810–1880), ornithologist, born at the vicarage of St. Just-in-Roseland, Cornwall, on 17 March 1810, was third son of Edward Rodd, D.D. (1768–1842), by his wife Hariet, daughter of Charles Rashleigh, esq., of Duporth, Cornwall. He was educated at Ottery St. Mary school, and trained for the law, being admitted to practise as a solicitor in Trinity term 1832. Early in the following year he settled at Penzance, where he entered into partnership with George Dennis John. On John's death Rodd was joined by one Drake, and after the latter's death the firm became Rodd & Cornish. Rodd retired about 1878. He had also held many official posts in the town. He was town clerk from 1847, clerk to the local board from 1849, clerk to the board of guardians from the passing of the Poor Law Act, and superintendent registrar, besides being head distributor of stamps in Cornwall from 1844 to 1867. He died unmarried at Penzance on 25 Jan. 1880, and was buried in the cemetery there.
Rodd was an ardent ornithologist, and especially interested in the question of migration. He studied minutely the avifauna of his county, and it was entirely due to his exertion that many a rare bird was rescued from oblivion, while several species were added by him to the list of British birds.
Besides upwards of twenty papers on ornithological matters contributed to the ‘Zoologist,’ the ‘Ibis,’ and the ‘Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall’ from 1843 ​onwards, Rodd was author of:
* ‘A List of British Birds as a Guide to the Ornithology of Cornwall,’ 8vo, London, 1864; 2nd edit. 1869.
* ‘The Birds of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands … Edited by J. E. Harting,’ 8vo, London, 1880.
His collection passed to his nephew, F. R. Rodd, esq., at Trebartha Hall, Launceston.
[Memoir by J. E. Harting, prefixed to Birds of Cornwall; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. ii. 580, and Suppl. p. 1327; information kindly supplied by his nephew, F. R. Rodd, esq., of Trebartha Hall, Launceston, Brit. Mus. Cat.; Royal Soc. Cat.]
B. B. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rochester, Solomon de

Solomon of Rochester in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​ROCHESTER, SOLOMON de (d. 1294), judge, was a native of Rochester, whence he took his name. His brother Gilbert held the living of Tong in Kent. Solomon took orders, and was apparently employed by Henry III in a legal capacity. In 1274 he was appointed justice in eyre for Middlesex, and in the following year for Worcestershire. From this time forward he was constantly employed in this capacity, and among the counties included in his circuits were Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Cornwall. He was frequently placed on commissions of oyer and terminer, and for other business, such as taking quo warranto pleas, and inquiring into the concealment of goods forfeited by the Jews. In 1276 he was present at council when the king gave judgment against Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, and he was also summoned to councils held in November 1283 and October 1288. In the following year he was, like all the other judges except two, dismissed for maladministration of justice and corruption. He was probably one of the worst offenders, as he was fined four thousand marks, a sum much larger than that extorted from several of the other judges (Oxenedes, p. 275). On 4 Jan. 1290 his name appears on a commission of oyer and terminer, but he does not appear to have had any further employment. In the parliament of 1290, as a consequence of Rochester's fall, numerous complaints were preferred against his conduct as a judge, one of them being from the abbey of Abingdon, from which he had extorted a considerable sum of money to give to his brother Gilbert.
Rochester now aimed at ecclesiastical preferment. He already held the prebend of Chamberlain Wood in St. Paul's Cathedral, and on the death of Thomas Inglethorp, bishop of Rochester, in May 1291, he made fruitless efforts to induce the monks to elect him to that see. Their refusal deeply offended him, and in a suit between the monks and the bishop of Rochester in 1294 Solomon persuaded the judges in eyre at Canterbury to give a decision adverse to the monks. According to Matthew of Westminster, the monks were avenged by the sudden death of their chief enemies, and the judges in terror sought their pardon, alleging that they had been ‘wickedly deceived by the wisdom of Solomon.’ Solomon himself was one of the victims; on 14 Aug. 1294 one Guynand or Wynand, parson of Snodland in Kent, entered Solomon's house, ate with him, and put poison into his food and drink, so that he died fifteen days afterwards (Placit. Abbreviatio, p. 290). According to Matthew of Westminster, Guynand only made Solomon drunk. He was charged with the murder, but pleaded his orders, and was successfully claimed as a clerk by the bishop of Rochester. Finally he purged himself at Greenwich, and was liberated. Solomon de Rochester had a house at Snodland, and another in Rochester, which in 1284 he was licensed to extend to the city walls and even to build on them.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rock, Daniel

​ROCK, DANIEL, D.D. (1799–1871), ecclesiologist, born at Liverpool on 31 Aug. 1799, was entered as a foundation scholar at St. Edmund's College, near Ware, Hertfordshire, in 1813. In December of the same year he was one of six students who went from England to Rome on the reopening of the English College in that city. He was ordained subdeacon on 21 Dec. 1822, deacon on 20 May 1823, and priest on 13 March 1824. He returned to England in April 1825, and it is thought that his degree of D.D. was obtained before leaving Rome. He was engaged on the ‘London mission’ from 1825 to 1827, when he became a domestic chaplain to the Earl of Shrewsbury. About 1838–45 he was a prominent member of a club of priests calling themselves the ‘Adelphi,’ formed for promoting the restoration of the Roman catholic hierarchy in this country. In 1840 he was appointed priest of the Roman catholic congregation of Buckland, near Faringdon, Berkshire, and in 1852 was elected one of the first canons of Southwark Cathedral. Two years later he resigned his country charge and took up his residence in London. In 1862 he served as a member of the committee appointed to carry out the objects of the special exhibition at the South Kensington Museum of works chiefly of the mediæval period. He died at his residence, Kensington, on 28 Nov. 1871, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery.
He wrote:
* ‘Hierurgia, or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass expounded,’ 1833, ​2 vols.; 2nd edit. 1851; 3rd edit., revised by W. H. J. Weale, 1893; illustrated from paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions belonging to the earliest ages of the church.
* ‘Did the Early Church in Ireland acknowledge the Pope's Supremacy? Answered in a Letter to Lord John Manners,’ 1844.
* ‘The Church of our Fathers, as seen in St. Osmund's Rite for the Cathedral of Salisbury; with Dissertations on the Belief and Ritual in England before the Coming of the Normans,’ 1849–54, 3 vols. in four parts; a new edition, by the Benedictines of Downside, is in preparation (1896).
* ‘The Mystic Crown of Mary the Holy Maiden, Mother of God,’ &c., in verse, 1857.
* ‘Textile Fabrics, a Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church Vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework, and Tapestries, forming that Section of the (South Kensington) Museum,’ 1870. The introduction to this volume was reissued as No. 1 of the ‘South Kensington Handbooks,’ 1876.
Rock contributed to Manning's ‘Essays in Religion,’ &c., 1865, a paper ‘On the Influence of the Church on Art in the Dark Ages,’ also three papers to the ‘Archæological Journal’ (vols. xxv. xxvi. xxvii.), and many communications to ‘Notes and Queries.’ He also wrote an article on the ‘Fallacious Evidence of the Senses’ in the ‘Dublin Review’ for October 1837.
[English Cyclopædia, Suppl. to Biography, 1872, col. 1047; Graphic, 30 Dec. 1871 (portrait); Brady's Episcopal Succession in England, iii. 350; information kindly supplied by the rector of the English College at Rome, by the president of St. Edmund's College, and by Mr. Joseph Gillow.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rockray, Edmund

​ROCKRAY, EDMUND (d. 1597), puritan divine, matriculated as a sizar of Queens' College, Cambridge, in November 1558, graduated B.A. in 1560–1, M.A. in 1564, B.D. in 1570, and became fellow of his college and bursar shortly after 1560, and proctor of the university in 1568. Rockray was a zealous puritan. In 1570 he openly avowed his sympathy with Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603) [q. v.] (State Papers, Dom. Eliz. lxxii. 11; Strype, Annals, I. ii. 376, II. ii. 415–16). For attacking the new statutes imposed by the government on the university he was summoned before Whitgift, then vice-chancellor of the university, declined to recant, and was ordered to keep his rooms (Heywood and Wright, Cambridge Transactions during the Puritan Period, i. 59; Neal, Puritans, i. 306; Baker MSS. iii. 382–4). In May 1572 he signed the new statutes of the university (ib. i. 62; Lamb, Cambridge Documents), but about the same time he was ejected from his fellowship by order of the privy council for scruples as to the vestments, but was readmitted by Burghley's influence. He still continued obstinate as to the ecclesiastical and academic vestments (Strype, Annals, II. ii. 58), but he retained his fellowship until January 1578–9. In 1577 he had been made canon of Rochester, but, owing to his persistence in nonconformist practices, was suspended from the ministerial functions from 1584 till 1588. In 1587 he vacated his canonry, and, after continuing under ecclesiastical censure for many years, died in 1597.
[Authorities as in text; Neal's Puritans; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; ‘second part of a register,’ manuscript at Dr. Williams's Library, pp. 285, 585; Urwick's Nonconformity in Huntingdonshire, p. 803; information kindly sent by F. G. Plaistowe, librarian of Queens' Coll. Cambridge.]
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fairfax, Charles (fl.1604)

​FAIRFAX, Sir CHARLES (fl. 1604), soldier, was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton and Nun Appleton in Yorkshire, and brother of Thomas, first lord Fairfax [q. v.] He was born in or about 1567, and when very young he went with his brother to serve under Sir Francis Vere in the Low Countries. Charles became a distinguished commander. At the battle of Nieuport he rallied the English companies at a critical moment with distinguished gallantry, and he was one of the defenders of Ostend. By desire of Sir Francis Vere he went to the camp of the Archduke Albert as a hostage, and he fought in the breach when the Spanish forces assaulted the works in December 1601. In 1604 Fairfax was at the siege of Sluys, commanding troops which routed the Spanish general Velasco. The date and manner of his death have not been ascertained. The notice of the Sir Charles Fairfax in the ‘Fairfax Correspondence’ (i. xix) is erroneous. He was never governor of Ostend, and he certainly was not slain in the manner and at the time there stated, for he was afterwards at the siege of Sluys.
C. R. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fairfax, Henry (1588-1665)

​FAIRFAX, HENRY (1588–1665), friend of George Herbert, fourth son of Thomas, first lord Fairfax [q. v.], was born at Denton, Yorkshire, in 1588. His uncle, Edward Fairfax [q. v.], who, says Brian Fairfax, was very serviceable to his brother, the first lord Fairfax, in the education of his children, was living at New Hall, Otley, Yorkshire, about 1600. Henry Fairfax proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which, in 1608, he became a fellow. In the same year George Herbert entered the college, where he also obtained a fellowship. They were intimate friends until Herbert's death in 1634. Fairfax gave up his fellowship on accepting the living of Newton Kyme, Yorkshire, from his father. This preferment he exchanged for a few years for the parish of Ashton-in-Makerfield in Lancashire, returning at the end of that time to Newton Kyme. He married (second wife) Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Cholmeley of Whitby, and his rectory at Newton was during the civil wars ‘a refuge and a sanctuary to all their friends and relations on both sides’ (Fairfax MSS.)
Fairfax took an active part in the unsuccessful movement, about 1640, to obtain the foundation of a university for the north. Petitions were sent up to parliament urging the necessity of such a seat of learning. York and Manchester competed warmly for the honour of receiving it. Fairfax wrote to his brother Ferdinando, then second lord Fairfax [q. v.], 20 March 1641, asking for his influence. In 1646 Fairfax was removed from Newton Kyme to the neighbouring, and much richer, rectory of Bolton Percy. Here he resided for a great portion of the time with his nephew Thomas, third lord Fairfax [q. v.], as a parishioner at Nun Appleton, until the Restoration in 1660. At that time, his position being doubtful, he voluntarily withdrew in favour of a Mr. Wickham, and retired to a private estate which he had inherited at Oglethorpe, Yorkshire. Here he died 6 April 1665. He was buried in the choir of Bolton Percy Church by the side of Mary, his wife, who had died in 1650. His eldest son Henry succeeded a cousin as fourth lord in 1671. His second son, Brian [q. v.], is separately noticed.
Fairfax was an admirable parish priest, and something of an antiquarian and genealogist. His learned brother, Charles Fairfax [q. v.], the author of ‘Analecta Fairfaxiana,’ frequently quotes from his notes on antiquarian and family subjects, and evidently held his learning in the highest respect. None of his works now survive, except some anagrams and epigrams in ‘Analecta Fairfaxiana.’
T. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fairclough, Richard

​FAIRCLOUGH, RICHARD (1621–1682), nonconformist divine, born in 1621, was the eldest son of Samuel Fairclough (1594–1677) [q. v.] He graduated M.A. as a member of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which house he was a fellow. When Benjamin Whichcot [q. v.] was presented in 1643 to the college living of North Cadbury, Somersetshire, he engaged Fairclough to bear him company thither. They had scarcely arrived when Whichcot received a hasty recall to Cambridge, and Fairclough at his request stayed in his place. Soon afterwards the high sheriff of the county applied to Fairclough to deliver the assize sermon on an emergency. He succeeded so well that the sheriff presented him to the rectory of Mells, near Frome, where he was greatly esteemed. When the Act of Uniformity passed he was ejected. After he left Finchingfield, Essex, where he had resided during four or five years with his father and brothers, he became pastor of a congregation at Newman Street, London, whence he removed to Bristol. He was licensed in 1672 to be a general presbyterian teacher, being then resident in Thames Street, London. He died in London 4 July 1682, in his sixty-first year, and was buried in Bunhill Fields, where a monument was erected to his memory, as a ‘testimony of gratitude for many obligations,’ by Thomas Percival of the Middle Temple. According to John Howe, who preached his funeral sermon, Fairclough was ‘a man of a ​clear, distinct understanding, of a very quick, discerning, and penetrating judgment, that would on a sudden … strike through knotty difficulties into the inward center of truth with such a felicity that things seem'd to offer themselves to him which are wont to cost others a troublesome search.’ He was author of ‘The nature, possibility, and duty of a true believer attaining to a certain knowledge of his effectual vocation, eternal election, and final perseverance to glory,’ a sermon (on 2 Pet. i. 10) printed in N. Vincent's ‘The Morning-Exercise against Popery,’ 1675, and in vol. vi. of S. Annesley's ‘The Morning Exercises,’ 1844, &c. Calamy also mentions ‘An Abridgment of some of his latter Sermons to his beloved people at Mells.’
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fairfax, Guy

​FAIRFAX, Sir GUY (d. 1495), judge, was of a Yorkshire family, and third son of Richard Fairfax of Walton, by his wife, Anastasia, daughter of John Carthorpe. He is mentioned (Rot. Parl. iv. 164) in 1421 as seised of the manor of Hameldene, being then very young. From his father he inherited the manor of Steeton in Yorkshire, where he built a castle. At first he seems to have been occupied with purely local business. He was in the commission of array for the West Riding in 1435, and in 1460 was commissioned to inquire what lands there were in that riding belonging to Richard, duke of York, who had been attainted in the previous parliament. One of his colleagues was Sir William Plumpton, whose counsel he afterwards was in 1469. He first appears in the year-books in Michaelmas 1463 as a serjeant ​and member of Gray's Inn. On 28 April 1468 he was appointed king's serjeant, and in 1476 became recorder of York. He was raised to a judgeship of the king's bench and is first mentioned as a judge in Trinity term 1477. In this office he won an honourable reputation, and on 8 Oct. 1482 he received a grant of a hundred merks yearly in addition to his salary. He was continued in his judgeship on each subsequent demise of the crown, and under Edward V became chief justice of Lancaster (Grants of Edward V, 6). He died in 1495. By his wife, Margaret, a daughter of Sir William Ryther, he had six children, four sons (the eldest, William, a judge of the common pleas under Henry VIII) and two daughters.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Moor, Robert

​MOOR, ROBERT (1568–1640), chronographer, was born in 1568 at Holyard in Hampshire, and elected a scholar at Winchester in 1579 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, s. v. 'More,' p. 148). Proceeding to New College, Oxford, he matriculated 12 July 1588, and graduated B.A. 5 April 1591, M.A. 15 Jan. 1595, B.D. and D.D. (by accumulation) 5 July 1614. He was made perpetual fellow of his college in 1589, but left it in 1597 for the rectory of West Meon and the vicarage of East Meon, which he held conjointly. On ​4 June 1613 he was installed prebendary of Winchester on the death of Dr. George Ryves (Hyde and Gale, Hist. and Antiq. of Winchester Cathedral). Here he was frequently involved in controversies with Bishop Neile on account of certain ceremonies which he had introduced into the cathedral. He is said to have been adorned in his youth with variety of learning, and in his later life to have been celebrated as an eloquent preacher and learned divine. He died 20 Feb. 1639-1640, and was buried in the chancel of West Meon Church.
He published a poem of great length written in Latin hexameters, intended as a universal chronology, and entitled: 'Diarium Historico-poeticum, in quo praeter Constellationum utriusque Hemisphserii, et Zodiaci Ortus et Occasus . . . declarantur cuj usque Mensis Dies fere singuli ... sic ut nihil paene desiderari possit, ad perfectam rerum gestarum Chronologiam . . . , Oxonii,' 1595, 4to.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 654 ; Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 254, 267, 357-8 ; Reg. Univ. Oxon. pt. ii. p. 165.]
G. T. D.