WILLIAM of Malmesbury, an historian of considerable merit in the reign of King Stephen, but of whose life few particulars are known. According to Bale and Pitts, he was surnamed Somersetus, from the county in which he was born. From his own preface to his second book “De Regibus Anglorum,” it appears that he was addicted to learning from his youth; that he applied himself to the study of logic, physic, ethics, and particularly to history. He retired to the Benedictine convent at Malmesbury, became a monk, and was made precentor and librarian; a situation which much favoured his intention of writing the history of the kingdom. In this monastery he spent the remainder of his life, and died in the year 1142. He is one of our most ancient and most faithful historians. His principal work is that entitled “De Regibus Anglorum,” in five books; with an appendix, which he styles “Historiae Novell®,” in two more. It is a judicious collection of whatever he found on record relative to England, from the invasion of the Saxons to his own times.

William of Newbury, so called from a monastery in Yorkshire, of which he was a member, wrote a history which begins at the Conquest and ends at the year 1197. His Latin style is preferred to that of Matthew Paris; and he is entitled to particular praise for his honest regard to truth in treating the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth with the contempt they deserve, as well as for expressing his approbation of Henry II.'s design of reforming the clergy, by bringing them under the regulation of the secular power.

William of Wykeham shop of Winchester, was born in the village of Wykeham in Hampshire in 1324. He was educated at Winchester school; and his patron Nicholas Uvedale, governor of Winchester castle, afterwards took him into his family, and appointed him his counsellor and secretary. He could not have made choice of a fitter person for that employment, no man in that age writing or speaking more politely than Wykeham. For this reason, Edington, bishop of Winchester, lord high treasurer of the kingdom, appointed him his secretary three years after, and also recommended him to King Edward III. who took him into his service. Being skilled in geometry and architecture, he was appointed surveyor of the royal buildings, and also chief justice in evre. He superintended the building of Windsor Castle. He was afterwards chief secretary of state, and keeper of the privy seal, and in 1367 succeeded Edington in the see of Winchester. A little after he was appointed lord high chancellor and president of the privy council. That he might well discharge the several functions of his employments, both ecclesiastical and civil, he endeavoured on one hand to regulate his own life according to the strictest maxims, and to promote such parish priests only as were able to give due instructions to their parishioners, and at the same time led exemplary lives: on the other hand, he did all in his power to cause justice to be impartially administered. In 1371 he resigned his chancellorship. Edward returning to England, after having carried on a very successful war in France, found his exchequer in great disorder. The duke of Lancaster, one of his sons, at the head of several lords, having brought complaints against the clergy, who then enjoyed the chief places in the kingdom, the king removed them from their employments. But the laymen who were raised to them behaved so ill that the king was forced to restore the ecclesiastics. The duke of Lancaster showed strong animosity to the clergy, and set every engine at work to ruin Wykeham. He impeached him of extortion, and obliged him to appear at the King’s Bench. He got such judges appointed as condemned him; and not satisfied with depriving him of all the temporalities of his bishopric, he advised Edward to banish him; but this prince rejected the proposal and afterwards restored to Wykeham all that he had been divested of. Richard II. was but eleven years old when Edward died, so that the duke of Lancaster had an easy opportunity of reviving the accusations against the bishop of Winchester; nevertheless Wykeham vindicated himself. He now founded two noble colleges, the one in Oxford, called New College, the other in Winchester. While he was exerting his utmost endeavours to improve these foundations, he was recalled to court, and in a manner forced to accept of the office of lord high chancellor in 1389. Having excellently discharged the duties of that employment for three years, he obtained leave to resign it, foreseeing the disturbances that were about to break out. Having returned to his diocese, he finished his college at Winchester, and there built so magnificent a cathedral that it almost equals that of St Paul’s in London. He laid out several sums in things advantageous to the public and to the poor, notwithstanding which, in 1397 he was in great danger, for he and some others were impeached of high treason in open parliament; however he was again fully cleared. From that time till his death he kept quiet in his diocese, and there employed himself in all the duties of a good prelate. He died in 1404, in the eighty-first year of his age.