# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Belasyse, Anthony

​BELASYSE, ANTHONY, LL.D. (d. 1552), civilian, sometimes called Bellows and Bellowsesse, was a younger son of Thomas Belasyse, Esq., of Henknowle, co. Durham. He proceeded bachelor of the civil law in the university of Cambridge in 1520, and was afterwards created LL.D., but it is supposed that he took that degree in a foreign university. In 1528 he was admitted an advocate. On 4 May 1533 he obtained the rectory of Whickham, co. Durham, being collated to it by Bishop Tunstal, who on 7 June following ordained him priest. In the same year he was presented to the vicarage of St. Oswald in the city of Durham. In 1539 he became vicar of Brancepeth in the same county, and about this time he resigned Whickham. His name is subscribed to the decree of convocation, 9 July 1540, declaring the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves to have been invalid. Later in the same year he obtained a prebend in the collegiate church of Auckland and a canonry at Westminster. Bonner, bishop of London, collated him to the archdeaconry of Colchester on 27 April 1543 (Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 91), and it is said that on the same day he obtained a prebend in the church of Ripon. He held also the mastership of the hospital of St. Edmund in Gateshead, and had a prebend in the collegiate church of Chester-le-Street. In January 1543-4 he was installed in the prebend of Heydour-cum-Walton in the church of Lincoln. In 1544 he was appointed a master in chancery, and on 17 Oct. in that year he was commissioned with the master of the rolls, John Tregonwell, and John Oliver, also masters in chancery, to hear causes in the absence of Lord Wriothesley, the lord chancellor. (Rymer, Foedera, ed. 1713, xv. 58).
Dr. Belasyse became master of Sherburne Hospital, co. Durham, in or about 1545, in which year Henry VIII granted to him, William Belasyse, and Margaret Simpson, the site of the priory of Newburgh in the county of York, with the demesne, lands, and other hereditaments; also certain manors in Westmoreland which had pertained to the dissolved monastery of Biland in Yorkshire. In 1546 he was holding the prebend of Timberscomb in the church of Wells, and three years later he was installed prebendary of Knaresborough-cum-Bickhill in the church of York. In January 1551-2 his name was inserted in a commission by which certain ​judges and civilians were authorised to assist Bishop Goodrich of Ely, the lord keeper, in hearing matters of chancery (Strype, Memorials, ii. 296, 488, fol.). It is said that he was one of the council of the north under Edward VI (Id. ii. 458, fol.), but the accuracy of this statement has been questioned. On 7 June 1552 he had a grant from the crown of a canonry in the church of Carlisle (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1547-80, p.40), though he does not appear to have to admitted to it, and his death occurred in the following month. Having largely profited by the spoliation of the monasteries, he bestowed the valuable estates thus obtained at Newburgh and elsewhere on his nephew, Sir William Belasyse, whose grandson was ennobled with the title of Fauconberg by Charles I.
[Foss's Judges of England, v. 91, 279, 341; Surtees's Durham, i. 130, 131, 140, ii. 241, iii. 367, iv. (2) 82; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 181, ii. 156, 342, iii. 197, 352; Cal. of State Papers (Dom. 1547-80), 23; Strype's Memorials (fol.), ii. 531; Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, ed. Robinson, 289 n; Coote's Civilians, 25; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab, i. 543.]
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