Albert Frederick Pollard

“ WORSLEY, WILLIAM (1435?−1499) , dean of St. Paul's, born probably about 1435, is believed to have been the son of Sir Robert Worsley of Booths in Eccles, Lancashire, and his wife Maude, daughter of Sir John Gerard of Bryn, Lancashire. His brother Robert married Margaret, niece of William and Lawrence Booth [q. v.] , both of them archbishops of York, to whose influence William owed most of his preferments. ”

“ He was arrested in November, confessed before a commission of oyer and terminer, and was attainted of high treason on the 14th (Rot. Parl. vi. 489b) . The lay conspirators were put to death, but Worsley was saved by his order, and on 6 June 1495 he was pardoned (Gairdner, Letters and Papers, ii. 375) . In October following parliament passed an act (11 Henry VII, c. 52) restoring him in blood (Statutes of the Realm, ii. 619) . He had retained his ecclesiastical preferments, and died in possession of them on 14 Aug. ”

“ His will, dated 12 Feb. 1498−9, was proved at Lambeth on 8 Nov. 1499, and at York on 27 March 1500, and is printed in ‘Testamenta Eboracensia,’ iv. 155−6; by it he left money for an obit in St. Paul's. ”