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

Luke de Netterville in the ODNB.
​NETTERVILLE or NUTREVILLA, LUCAS de (d. 1227), archbishop of Armagh, member of an Anglo-Norman family in Ireland, was appointed archdeacon of Armagh about 1207. The diocesan chapter of Armagh in 1216 chose Netterville as archbishop of that primatial see, then vacant; but their act was annulled on the ground that the assent of the crown of England had not previously been obtained. After a money composition a new election was held, under royal authority, and Netterville was appointed to the archbishopric. On 6 July 1218 the king wrote to the pope saying he had given his assent to Netterville's election, and asking for papal confirmation. The pallium was sent to him from Rome, and he received consecration from Stephen Langton. Netterville, after his return to Ireland in 1224, commenced the erection of an establishment near Drogheda for members of the Dominican order. An instrument executed by Netterville as archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, together with his attestations as witness, previous to his advancement to the prelacy, will be found in the register books of the Dublin abbeys of St. Mary and St. Thomas. Netterville died on 17 April 1227, and was buried, it is said, at Drogheda.
J. T. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nesbitt, John

​NESBITT, JOHN (1661–1727), independent minister, was born in Northumberland on 6 Oct. 1661. His parents sent him to Edinburgh to be educated for the ministry. He is possibly the ‘John Nisbett’ who graduated at Edinburgh University on 24 March 1680; but it seems he had to leave Edinburgh in 1681 for some display of protestant zeal in presence of the Duke of York. He fled to London, and was on his way to Holland when he was arrested with others, and put in irons in the Marshalsea. He was detained in close confinement for four months, in hope of his turning evidence against his companions, and was discharged before completing his twentieth year. Adopting the name of White, he went to Holland, where he became a good classic, well read in the fathers and in history. In 1688 he was an occasional preacher to the English congregation at Utrecht.
After the revolution he returned to London, and became a member (16 Dec. 1690) of Stepney independent church. In 1691 he succeeded George Cokayne [q. v.] as pastor of the independent church in Hare Court, Aldersgate Street. He became, and remained for over thirty years, an exceedingly popular preacher, famous for his use of similes, retaining his evangelical Calvinism, and resisting the current tendency to a merely didactic style. In Addison's ‘Spectator’ (No. 317, 4 March 1712) he is caricatured as ‘Mr. Nisby’ in extracts from an imaginary diary of one of his hearers.
In 1697 Nesbitt was elected to a merchants' lectureship at Pinners' Hall, in succession to Nathanael Mather [q. v.] He took part in the preparation of dissenting statistics (1717–1718), known as ‘Evans's List,’ himself supplying lists for Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, and obtaining the Staffordshire list. He was a subscriber at the Salters' Hall division in 1719 [see Bradbury, Thomas], and though not prominent in public affairs, he did much to secure the cohesion and unity of his own denomination. As assistants he had Matthew Clarke the younger [q. v.], for some years till 1705; James Naylor (d. 23 July 1708, aged 29); John Conder, and John Hurrion [q. v.], who succeeded him. In 1723 Nesbitt was seized with paralysis, which disabled him from work. He died on 22 Oct. 1727, and was buried at Bunhill Fields; Hurrion preached his funeral sermon. His wife's name was Elizabeth. His son Robert [q. v.] is separately noticed.
He published six separate sermons, including funeral sermons for three ministers, Thomas Gouge (1665?–1700) [q. v.], John Russel (1714), and Richard Taylor (1717). Two portraits of Nesbitt, one (1709) engraved by J. Faber and the other (1721) by G. White, after Woolaston, are mentioned by Bromley.
A. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mylne, Walter

​MYLNE or MILN, WALTER (d. 1558), the last Scottish protestant martyr, in his early years visited Germany, where he imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation, and afterwards became priest in the church of Lunan in Angus. During the time of Cardinal Beaton information was laid against him as a heretic, whereupon he fled the country, and was condemned to be burnt wherever he might be found. Long after the cardinal's death he was at the instance of John Hamilton, bishop of St. Andrews, apprehended in April 1558 in the town of Dysart, Fifeshire, where, according to Pitscottie, he ‘was warmand him in ane poor wyfes hous, and was teaching her the commandments of God’ (Chronicles, p. 517). After being for some time confined in the castle of St. Andrews, he was brought for trial before an assemblage of bishops, abbots, and doctors in the cathedral church. He was then over eighty years of age, and so weak and infirm that he could scarce climb up to the pulpit where he had to answer before them. Yet, says Foxe, ‘when he began to speak he made the church to ring and sound again with so great courage and stoutness that the Christians which were present were no less rejoiced than the adversaries were confounded and ashamed.’ So far from pretending to deny the accusations against him, he made use of the opportunity boldly to denounce what he regarded as the special errors of the Romish church; his trial was soon over, and he was condemned to be burnt as a heretic on 28 April 1558. According to George Buchanan, the commonalty of St. Andrews were so offended at the sentence that they shut up their shops in order that they might sell no materials for his execution; and after his death they heaped up in his memory a great pile of stones on the place where he was burned. Mylne was married, and his widow was alive in 1573, when she received 6l. 13s. 4d. out of the thirds of the benefices.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mylne, James

​MYLNE, JAMES (d. 1788), poet, was laird of Lochill or Loch-hill, a small estate near Prestonpans, Haddingtonshire. His ‘Poems, consisting of Miscellaneous Pieces and two Tragedies,’ were published posthumously (Edinburgh, 8vo, 1790) by his son George, who obtained a very long list of subscribers. Some of the verses are in dialect, and all show taste and reading; the best is perhaps an invitation from the poet to Robert Burns to visit him on his farm. The two tragedies, ‘The British Kings’ and ‘Darthula,’ dealing respectively with prehistoric Britain and prehistoric Ulster, are not so well inspired. Mylne died at Lochill on 9 Dec. 1788.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mylne, Robert (1643?-1747)

​MYLNE, ROBERT (1643?–1747), writer of pasquils and antiquary, said to have been related to Sir Robert Mylne of Barnton, North Edinburghshire, was probably born in November 1643. He is generally described as a ‘writer’ of Edinburgh, but also as an engraver; he gained notoriety by his bitter and often scurrilous political squibs against the whigs, but he also devoted much time and labour to copying manuscripts of antiquarian and historical interest. George Crawfurd, in the preface to his ‘History of the Shire of Renfrew,’ acknowledges his indebtedness to the ‘vast collections of public records’ belonging to Mylne, ‘a person well known to be indefatigable in the study of Scots antiquities.’ Among Mylne's other friends was Archibald Pitcairne [q. v.] Mylne died at Edinburgh on 21 Nov. 1747, aged 103 according to some accounts, and 105 according to others, and was buried on the anniversary of his birthday.
Mylne married on 29 Aug. 1678, in the Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh, Barbara, second daughter of John Govean, minister at Muckart, Perthshire; she died on 11 Dec. 1725, having had twelve children, all of whom, except one daughter, Margaret, predeceased their father.
Many of Mylne's pasquils were separately issued in his lifetime, but others were circulated only in manuscript. From a collection brought together by Mylne's son Robert, James Maidment published, with an introduction and a few similar compositions by other writers, ‘A Book of Scottish Pasquils,’ 3 pts., Edinburgh, 1827; another edition appeared in 1868. In the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, there is a pamphlet, apparently by Mylne, entitled ‘The Oath of Abjuration Considered,’ 1712, 4to, and a complete manuscript catalogue of Mylne's printed broadsides.
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Middleton, Patrick

​MIDDLETON, PATRICK (1662–1736), Scottish nonjuring divine, born in 1662, studied in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews; graduated M.A. 20 July 1680, and after ordination became, in 1684, minister of Leslie, in the presbytery of Kirkcaldy. He was deprived by the privy council, 22 Aug. 1689, for not reading the proclamation of the estates and for praying for James II. He was discharged from exercising any part of the clerical function under a severe penalty by the privy council in December 1692 for not praying for William and Mary. In 1716 he had a meeting-house in Skinner's Close, Edinburgh, and was prosecuted, with others, before the lords of justiciary, and being convicted a second time, 19 June 1717, of not praying nominatim for George I in terms of the Act of Toleration, he was forbidden to preach or exercise any part of the ministry. He died at Bristol on 25 July 1736.
His works are: 1. ‘A Dissertation upon the Power of the Church; In a Middle Way, Betwixt those who screw it up to the highest, with the Papists and Scotish Presbyterians on the one hand; and the Erastians and Followers of Hugo Grotius, who, on the other hand, do wholly reject the Intrinsic Spiritual Authority wherewith Jesus Christ hath vested the Rulers of his Church,’ London, 1733, 8vo. 2. ‘A Short View of the Evidences upon which the Christian Religion, and the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures is established. … With a Defence not only of the Usefulness, but also of the Necessity of Divine Revelation; against [Matthew Tindal],’ 2 parts, London [1734], 8vo. 3. ‘The Case of Abraham's being commanded by God Almighty to offer up his son Isaac in sacrifice, impartially examined and defended, against the Deists and other modern Infidels,’ 2nd edit. London, 1740, 8vo. On the title-page he is styled a doctor of divinity, though it does not appear that he took that degree. 4. ‘An Enquiry into the Inward Call of the Holy Ministry’ (anon.), Cambridge, 1741, 8vo.
[Bodl. Cat. ii. 741; Hist. Reg. 1736, Chron. Diary, p. 44; Political State of Great Britain, lii. 102; Hew Scott's Fasti, ii. 550.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Middleton, Richard (d.1641)

​MIDDLETON, RICHARD (d. 1641), divine, was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 13 July 1586. Wood conjectures that he was son of Marmaduke Middleton [q. v.], bishop of St. David's. It is probable that he was presented to the vicarage of Llanarthney, Carmarthenshire, in 1588. He was collated to a prebend in the collegiate church of Brecon in 1589, held the archdeaconry of Cardigan from 1589 to 1629, became chaplain in ordinary to Charles, prince of Wales, and was designed vicar of Leeds in 1614 (Thoresby, Vicaria Leodiensis, pp. 62, 64). In 1628 he was appointed rector of Eaton, Northamptonshire, being then B.D. He died on 16 Nov. 1641. One Richard Middleton was admitted to the rectory of Stisted, Essex, on 28 Sept. 1619, on the translation of Samuel Harsnet from the see of Chichester to that of Norwich; but his identity with the rector of Eaton is not certain.
Middleton was author of: 1. ‘The Carde and Compasse of Life, containing many Passages fit for these Times,’ London, 1613, 8vo. 2. ‘The Heauenly Progresse,’ London, 1617, 8vo. 3. ‘The Key of Dauid,’ London, 1619, 12mo. On the title-page is his portrait, engraved by R. Elstracke, representing him with a ruff and a great beard (Bromley, Cat. of Portraits, p. 54). At the end of the book is another tract by Middleton, also printed in 1619, and entitled ‘Goodnes: The blessed Man's Badge, or God's Character stampt on Man's Conscience.’
[Addit. MS. 5876, f. 108; Bodleian Cat.; Bridges's Northamptonshire, ii. 144; Foster's Alumni Oxon. early ser. iii. 1010; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. ii. 63; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 315; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1545; Newcourt's Repertorium, ii. 562; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 235.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Middleton, William (d.1613)

​MIDDLETON, WILLIAM (d. 1613), protestant controversialist, a native of Shropshire, matriculated as a sizar of Queens' ​College, Cambridge, in October 1567, proceeded B.A. in 1570–1, and was elected a fellow of his college 28 June 1572 (Searle, Hist. of Queens' College, pp. 324–31). The president and fellows in 1574 denied him permission to proceed to the degree of M.A. at Cambridge, and he consequently took that degree at Oxford. But his title to it was not recognised by his Cambridge colleagues, and he was deprived of his fellowship in July 1575, for not having commenced M.A. within the period prescribed by the college statutes. On appealing to Lord Burghley, chancellor of the university, he was restored to his fellowship, but not to his seniority (Lansdowne MS. 20, art. 76). He was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge in 1576, proceeded B.D. in 1582, and vacated his fellowship in or about 1590. For many years he held the rectory of Hardwick, Cambridgeshire. It seems that he was elected master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, in the room of Dr. Thomas Jegon [q. v.], of whom the queen disapproved, but on the accession of King James Jegon was restored, although Middleton made a fruitless attempt to retain possession (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 446). Middleton died on 14 June 1613, and was buried in Hardwick churchyard, where a monument, with an English inscription, was erected to his memory (Addit. MS. 5823, f. 180).
Middleton's only known work, although he is said to have written others, is ‘Papisto Mastix, or the Protestants Religion defended. Shewing briefeley when the great compound heresie of Poperie first sprange; how it grew peece by peece till Antichrist was disclosed; .... and when it shall be cut down and withered,’ London, 1606, 4to. It is dedicated to Dr. Humphrey Tendall, master, and to the fellows of Queens' College. The work has the secondary title: ‘A Briefe Answere to a Popish Dialogue between two Gentlemen; the one a Papist, the other a Protestant.’
[Addit. MS. 5876, f. 108; Blomefield's Collect. Cantabr. p. 12; Heywood and Wright's Univ. Trans. i. 177–84, 538; Prynne's Trial of Archbishop Laud, pp. 429–31; Cal. of State Papers (Dom. Eliz. 1603–10), p. 8; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 526; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 649.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nollekens, Joseph Francis

​NOLLEKENS, JOSEPH FRANCIS (1702–1748), painter, commonly called ‘Old Nollekens,’ was born at Antwerp on 10 June 1702 and baptised as Corneille François Nollekens. His father, Jean Baptiste, a painter of no importance, practised for a time in England, but eventually settled in France. There, it is said, the son studied under Watteau, whose style and choice of subject he to some extent imitated. He certainly studied for a time under Giovanni Paolo Panini. He came to England in 1733, and married one Mary Anne Le Sacq, by whom he had five children, viz. John Joseph, Joseph (the sculptor), Maria Joanna Sophia, Jacobus, and Thomas Charles. Of these only Joseph, the sculptor, settled in England.
On his first arrival in this country Old Nollekens was much employed in making copies from Watteau and Panini. He also carried out decorative works at Stowe for Lord Cobham, and painted several pictures for the Marquis of Stafford at Trentham. His chief patron, however, was Sir Richard Child, earl Tylney, for whom he painted a number of conversation pieces, fêtes champêtres, and the like, the scenes being laid as a rule in the gardens of Wanstead House. Several of these were included in the sale held at Wanstead in 1822, one, an ‘Interior of the Saloon at Wanstead, with an assemblage of ladies and gentlemen,’ fetching the comparatively high price of 127l. 1s. At Windsor there is a picture by him in which portraits of Frederick, prince of Wales, and his sisters are introduced.
According to Northcote, whose authority is said to have been Thomas Banks the sculptor, Old Nollekens owed his death to his nervous terrors for his property. The fact that he was a Roman catholic, and reputed to be a miser, contributed to increase his anxiety. Dread of robbery finally threw the artist into a nervous illness; he lingered, however, until 21 Jan. 1748, when he died at his house in Dean Street, Soho. He was buried at Paddington.
[Walpole's Anecd. of Painting in England; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the British School; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers; J. T. Smith's Nollekens and his Times, 1829 and 1894.]
W. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Non Fendigaid

​NON Fendigaid, i.e. the Blessed (fl. 550?), mother of St. David, was, according to the oldest extant life of that saint (that by Ricemarchus [q. v.], printed in Cambro-British Saints, ed. Rees, 1853), a nun of Dyfed or West Wales, who was violated by Sant, king of Ceredigion (i.e. Cardiganshire). Various genealogies of the saints make her the daughter of Cynyr of Caer Gawch, who was apparently a chieftain of Pebidiog, the region in which St. David's now stands, and Rees (Welsh Saints) assumes that Sant (or Sandde) and she were husband and wife. All that is certainly known of her is that her memory came in time to be revered together with that of her son. Four churches in South-West Wales are dedicated to her: Llannon and Llanuwchaeron in Cardiganshire, Llannon in Carmarthenshire, and a chapel (near which is St. Non's Well) in the vicinity of St. David's. She was also honoured at Alternon in Cornwall and Dirinon in Brittany; a Breton mystery, entitled ‘Butez Santez Nonn,’ found at the latter place and published in 1837 (Paris, ed. Sionnet), gives her legend much as Ricemarchus does. Her festival was 3 March.
[Rees's Welsh Saints, 1836; Cambro-British Saints, ed. W. J. Rees; Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd ed. 415, 423; Iolo MSS. 101, 110, 124, 152.]
J. E. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nolan, Michael

​NOLAN, MICHAEL (d. 1827), legal author, born in Ireland, was admitted an attorney of the court of exchequer in that country about 1787, and was called to the English bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1792. In 1793 he published ‘Reports of Cases relative to the Duty and Office of a Justice of Peace from 1791 to 1793,’ London, 8vo. He practised as a special pleader on the home circuit and at the Surrey sessions, gained great experience of the details of the poor law, and some celebrity in the legal world as the author of ‘A Treatise of the Laws for the Relief and Settlement of the Poor,’ London, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo; 4th edit. in 1825, 3 vols. 8vo. As member for Barnstaple in the parliament of 1820–6 he introduced the Poor Law Reform Bills of 1822–3–4. He retired from parliament in March 1824 on being appointed justice of the counties of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. He died in 1827.
Nolan edited the ‘Reports’ of Sir John Strange [q. v.], London, 1795, 2 vols. 8vo, and was one of the joint editors of the ‘Supplement’ to Viner's ‘Abridgment,’ London, 1799–1806, 6 vols. 8vo. Besides the work on the poor laws he published: ‘A Syllabus of Lectures intended to be delivered in Pursuance of an Order of the Hon. Soc. of Lincoln's Inn in their Hall,’ London, 1796, 8vo, and a ‘Speech … delivered in the House of Commons, Wednesday, July 10, 1822, on moving for leave to bring in a Bill to alter and amend the Laws for the Relief of the Poor,’ London, 1822, 8vo.
[Wilson's Dublin Registry, 1788, p. 113; Rose's Biogr. Dict.; Webb's Compend, Irish Biog.; Marvin's Legal Bibliogr.; Hansard, new ser. vols. vii. x.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Noorthouck, John

​NOORTHOUCK, JOHN (1746?–1816), author, born in London about 1746, was the son of Herman Noorthouck, a bookseller of some repute, who had a shop, the Cicero's Head, Great Piazza, Covent Garden, and whose stock was sold off in 1730 (Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 619, 649). Early in life John Noorthouck was patronised by Owen Ruffhead and William Strahan the printer (ib. iii. 395). He gained his livelihood as an index-maker and corrector of the press. He was for almost fifty years a liveryman of the Company of Stationers, and spent nearly all his life in London, living in 1773 in Barnard's Inn, Holborn. His principal work was ‘A New History of London, including Westminster and Southwark,’ London, 1773, 4to, with copperplates. This book gives a history of London at all periods and a survey of the existing buildings. Noorthouck also published ‘An Historical and Classical Dictionary,’ 2 vols. London, 1776, 8vo, consisting of biographies of persons of all periods and countries. In 1814 Noorthouck was living at Oundle, Northamptonshire (ib. viii. 455), where he died about July 1816, aged about 70.
In a bookseller's catalogue, issued by John Russell Smith in London, April 1852, ‘the original autograph manuscript of the life of John Noorthouck, author of the “History of the Man after God's own Heart,” “History of London,” &c.,’ was offered for sale, and was there described as an unprinted autobiography containing many curious literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xii. 204). In the ‘Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors’ (1816, p. 253) is attributed to John Noorthouck ‘Constitutions of the Free and Accepted Masons,’ new edit. 1784, 4to.
[Gent. Mag. 1816, pt. ii. pp. 188–9; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. viii. 488–9; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
W. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norcome, Daniel

Surname Norcum in the ODNB.
​NORCOME, DANIEL (1576–1647?), musician, probably the son of Nurcombe or Norcome, lay clerk of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, between 1564 and 1587, was born at Windsor in 1576. Like his father, Norcome is said to have been singing-man at Windsor in the reign of James I (Hawkins), but the name does not appear in the rolls of that period, and there is evidence to show that he was an exile on account of his faith in 1602, that he was admitted as instrumentalist to the arch-ducal chapel at Brussels, and that he was still there in 1647 (Fétis). ​Norcome's madrigal, in five parts, ‘With angel's face and brightness,’ was published in Morley's ‘Triumphs of Oriana,’ 1601.
[Fétis's Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, vi. 328; Treasurers' Rolls of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, by the courtesy of Canon Dalton and W. H. St. John Hope, esq., F.S.A.]
L. M. M.