William Holden Hutton

“ Sir Thomas White has frequently been confused (as by Ingram, Memorials of Oxford, St. John's College, p. 5) with a namesake, Sir Thomas White of South Warnborough, Hampshire [cf. art. White, John, 1511–1560] , who was knighted on the same day, and whose wife's name, Agnes, is not uncommonly interchanged with Avicia. The confusion is rendered the more natural from the fact that the White property at South Warnborough eventually passed into the hands of St. John's College, Oxford. ”

“ Juxon was summoned as a witness at the trial of Strafford, but, like Hamilton, Northumberland, and Cottington, could remember nothing of the suggested employment of the Irish army in England, which Vane attributed to Strafford. When the attainder was passed by the lords, Juxon and Usher alone advised Charles to refuse his assent, ‘seeing he knew his lordship to be innocent.’ He visited Laud in the Tower, and on 17 May 1641 he resigned the treasurer's white staff. While other bishops were impeached and imprisoned, he was left to reside peaceably at Fulham. ”

“ On 6 March 1635–6 Juxon received the white staff of lord high treasurer from the king's hand, and took the oath as a privy councillor. As an unmarried man and an ecclesiastic he would (it was believed) be above the temptations which had led his predecessors to enrich themselves at the expense of the state (Heylin, Cyp. Anglic.) He owed the appointment to Laud, who saw in his friend a man capable of ending the corrupt practices prevailing in the treasury, and of proving a useful coadjutor in directing secular affairs. ”

“ John Baptist (the patron saint of the Merchant Taylors' Company) . The society was to consist of a president and thirty graduate or non-graduate scholars (royal patent of foundation in college manuscripts) . In 1557 the scope and numbers of the foundation were enlarged (5 March, 4 & 5 Philip and Mary; the statutes were further revised under Dr. Willis, cf. Taylor's manuscript History) . The endowment of the college connected it closely with the neighbourhood of Oxford, but it was not a rich foundation. The statutes given were based on those of William of Wykeham for New College. ”

“ Many letters among the college manuscripts show White's constant care of the college he had founded. In 1559 he purchased Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where he is said to have resided in his later years. He was frequently entertained at Trinity College (Warton, Life of Pope, p. 123 n.) . Gloucester Hall he made into a hall for a hundred scholars. It was opened on St. John Baptist's day, 1560. Sir Thomas White's association with Cumnor is emphasised by the fact that in this hall the body of Amy Robsart lay before burial at St. Mary's. His interest in education was not confined to his own college. ”

“ Wood describes him as ‘a harmless and honest man, a noted disputant, well read in the schoolmen, and as conformable to and zealous in the established discipline of the church of England as any person of his time, yet of so odd and strange parts that few or none could be compared with him.’
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wood's Athenæ and Fasti; Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Laud's Works; Atkyns's Gloucestershire; Fletcher's Church of St. Martin Carfax.] ”

“ Charles also gave Juxon a copy of his private prayers, printed in some copies at the end of the ‘Eikōn basilikē’ (see the controversy between Wordsworth and Todd, and the latter's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1825) . Juxon took leave of his master in the words, ‘You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crown, a good exchange,’ and as Charles laid his head on the block, he gave the bishop his last commission in the word ‘Remember!’ The paper handed by the king to Juxon, containing a note of his speech, was at once demanded by the officers (Fuller, Church History, p. 236) . ”

“ While abbot he appears frequently in the state papers as presenting Christmas gifts to the king, providing hawks, &c., negotiating concerning advowsons, and engaging lay clerks and organists. The property of the abbey was very large, and the abbot kept great state, bringing up nearly three hundred sons of the nobility and gentry besides other meaner folk; he entertained sometimes five hundred persons of quality at once, and every Wednesday and Friday fed the poor of the neighbourhood. ”

“ He was buried in Winchester Cathedral on 15 Jan. He had many years before written his own epitaph, but this, though in the cathedral, was not apparently placed over his grave. He ‘gave much to his servants’ (Machyn) , and was a benefactor to New College, Oxford (Wood, History and Antiquities, ed. Gutch, p. 185) , and to Winchester (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. i. 314) .
White is spoken of as a severe and grave man, more of a theologian than a courtier. His enemies accused him of pride and covetousness.
Very few of White's works have survived (Pits, De Rebus Anglicis, p. 763) . ”

“ OWEN, THANKFULL (1620–1681) , independent divine, son of Philip Owen of Taplow, Buckinghamshire, gentleman, was born in 1620, and was sent to St. Paul's school, when his father went to reside in London. He held an exhibition from St. Paul's to the university, 1637–50. He matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, on 1 June 1636, graduated B.A. on 16 Jan. 1639–40, was elected fellow of Lincoln College in 1642, and proceeded M.A. July 1646. He was ‘remarkably preserued in his youth as he was swimming near Oxford, after he had sunk twice under water’ (Calamy, Nonconformist's Memorial, i. 181) . ”

“ John's College. Before his consecration Laud's election to Canterbury left the see of London vacant. The new archbishop's first care was, says Clarendon, ‘that the place he was removed from might be supplied with a man who would be vigilant to pull up those weeds which the London soil was too apt to nourish,’ and he easily procured Juxon's appointment to the post. About the same time Juxon became dean of the Chapel Royal (Cal. of State Papers, 12 Aug. 1633) . On 3 Oct. 1633 he was consecrated bishop of London. ”

“ This Prynne answered in ‘Lame Giles his Haltings’ (1631) . His sermons at Carfax, though popular among the royalists and soldiery, caused occasional riots among the puritan youths. At Laud's trial it was stated that he had set up a window in his church with a crucifix on it. He was generous to the poor, a strong antisabbatarian, dancing with his flock on Whit-Sunday, and worked energetically in his parish during the siege of Oxford. ”

“ WHITE, JOHN (1510?–1560) , bishop of Winchester, was the son of Robert White of Farnham, where he was born in 1510 or 1511 (his brother John became lord mayor of London in 1563: see pedigree in Manning and Bray's History of Surrey, iii. 177; but Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vii. 212, says this is incorrect) . In 1521, at the age of eleven, he was admitted scholar at Winchester, whence he proceeded as fellow to New College, Oxford (Kirby, p. 111) . He was admitted full fellow in 1527, graduated B.A. on 13 Dec. ”

“ When he went abroad he was attended by over a hundred men. He entertained Leland, who in his first draft spoke of him as ‘homo sane candidissimus, et amicus meus singularis’ (Collect. vi. 70) . In 1534 he took the oath of supremacy with his prior and fifty monks (Letters and Papers, vii. 296, 473; the oath was signed 19 Sept., but had apparently been taken on 1 June) .
The early investigations spoke well of the state of Glastonbury. Layton, writing to Cromwell 24 Aug. 1535, says that the monks are there ‘so strait kept that they cannot offend, but fain they would’ (ib., ix. 50) ”

“ He entered into controversy with Peter Martyr, and was the first, Fuller says, who treated theological disputes in verse (see list of his works below) . John Philpot [q. v.] , archdeacon of Winchester, excommunicated him ‘for preaching naughty doctrine’ (Philpot, Works, Parker Soc. p. 82) ; but White seems to have retained his preferments, and is said to have been instrumental in preserving the college of St. Mary at Winchester, when the adjoining college of St. Elizabeth, the site of which he purchased, was destroyed (see Milner, Winchester, i. 362) . ”

“ He was at once commanded to ‘keep his house,’ but on 19 Jan. 1558–9 he was called before the council, and, ‘after a good admonicion geven him, was sett at lyberty and discharged’ (Acts P. C. 1558–70, p. 45) . ”

“ Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., ii. i. 153) . Until 1633 he continued to reside during the vacations at Somerton, where he was assisted by curates (cf. Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Car. ii, vol. xxiii., 18 Dec. 1660) . The parishioners placed his arms (Or, a cross gules, between four negroes' heads couped wreathed about, proper) in the east window of the church (removed, before 1827, to the rectory house, where it still remains) and on the rood screen, dated 1642 (J. C. Blomfield, History of Middleton and Somerton, 1888) . ”

“ John's College; Sir Thomas Herbert's Memoirs, ed. 1702; Strafford Papers; Baillie's Letters, ed. Laing; and Gardiner's History of England to the Civil War and History of the Great Civil War. The best sketches of his character are those of Sir P. Warwick (who had been his secretary) , Memoirs, pp. 93–6, and Lloyd (who had Oxford sources of information) , pp. 595–6. The Life by Dean Hook (‘Archbishops of Canterbury,’ vol. ii. new ser.) is concerned chiefly with the last days of the king, and dwells little on Juxon's political career. ”

“ On 3 Jan. 1553–4 he received the Spanish envoys, and ten days later restored the custom of going in procession to St. Paul's for the high mass. On the breaking out of Wyatt's rebellion he arrested the Marquis of Northampton on 25 Jan. 1553–4. ”

“ John Owen (1616–1683) [q. v.] gave notice of Thankfull Owen's funeral, he said ‘that he had not left his fellow behind him for learning, religion, and good humour.’ ‘He was a man,’ says Calamy (i. 181) , ‘of genteel learning and an excellent temper ”

“ Many later manuscripts contain references to him (for list of St. John's College manuscripts, see Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. pp. 464–8) . For letters of his, see Hist. MSS. Comm. Coventry, p. 100; Letters and Papers, For. and Dom. of the Reign of Henry VIII; Strype's Memorials; Machyn's Diary; Plot's Natural History of Oxfordshire; Fuller's Worthies, Hertfordshire, p. 30; Gutch's History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford; Ingram's Memorials of Oxford; Clode's History of the Merchant Taylors' Company; Coates's History of Reading ”