Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/120

88 It is not known who this William Rame was, unless he be in- cluded among the "parsons and vicars" mentioned by Howe in his Chronicle, p. 639-40, as having been "deprived this year from their benefices, and some committed to prison in the Tower" and other places.

This person was most probably banished, as I find no account of his execution. In Strype's Annals of the Reformation, Vol II. p. 648-9, under the year 1580, the "Ropers" are mentioned among the queen's enemies remaining abroad, and a letter of Dr. Parry to the lord treasurer from Paris, is there cited, wherein he intercedes "for some papists, fugitives, Mr. John Roper and Mr. Thomas Roper by name, as well worthy of his lordship's good opinion and countenance."

These were probably descendants of the Roper who was sonin-law to sir Thomas More.

In the account of sir Thomas More and Mr. William Roper, in Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, (Vol. I. col. 33) it is stated that William Roper, who married Margaret More, was born in Kent, and educated for a time in one of the universities. Afterwards he succeeded his father, John Roper, in the office of first notary of the King's Bench, which, after he had faithfully performed fifty-four years, he resigned to his son, Thomas Roper, who held the same twenty-four years, and died ætatis 65, January 21, 1597." In his epitaph in St. Dunstan's church, in the suburbs of Canterbury, his name is spelled, as here, with two oo's. "Thomas Rooper, Armiger."

(A pair of scales.) Neither