Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/161

 Asbury a grandson of Sir John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius. When about thirty-five years of age, he was made count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1595 by the Emperor Rudolph II, for his valour in the wars against the Turks in Hungary; on one occasion he captured the enemy's banner with his own hand, whilst forcing the water-tower at Gran or Esztergom. He was a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who recommended him to the emperor in an autograph Latin letter, said to be still preserved at Wardour Castle. He was made first Baron Arundell of Wardour by James I in 1605. His eldest son,, second (born 1584), was (according to , iv, 125, ed. 1826) amongst the royalists of Cornish extraction who were present at the bloody battle of Lansdowne near Bath on 6 July 1643, where he was wounded. But this statement seems to be erroneous, for his monument in Tisbury Church, Wilts, records that he died at Oxford on 19 May 1643, probably of wounds received in some other engagement during the civil war. Lady Blanche Arundell, whose gallant defence of Wardour Castle against the parliament is a familiar matter of history, was the wife of the second baron.

 ASBURY, FRANCIS (1745–1816), Wesleyan bishop, was born 20 or 21 Aug. 1745, at Hamstead Bridge, in the parish of Handsworth, Staffordshire, four miles from Birmingham. He was the only son of Joseph Asbury and Eliza Rogers, both methodists. He began to preach, as a local preacher, at the age of eighteen, and was admitted as an itinerant preacher at the age of twenty-one. In August 1 771, when preachers were wanted by the Bristol conference to go to America, Asbury oftered himself; he embarked in September, and landed at Philadelphia 27 Oct. 1771. The American methodists, especially after the war of independence, were troubled by the want of the sacraments and of confirmation. Wesley, then in his eighty-second year, with the Revs. Thomas Coke, D.C.L., and James Creighton, ordained at Bristol, in 1784, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters for America; subsequently Wesley, by himself, ordained Coke as superintendent, explaining his views in a mandate dated 10 Sept. 1784. Following its terms. Coke and Asbury were elected joint superintendents by the Baltimore conference at Christmas, 1784. Coke and the two presbyters ordained Asbury deacon and elder on Christmas day; and superintendent, with the further assistance of the Rev. William Philip Otterbein, a Lutheran clergyman, on 27 Dec. Coke suggested the use of the title of bishop, and the conference agreed to constitute the 'Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America.' The remainder of Asbury's life was spent in organising and extending the church thus formed. Its germ had been planted by the emigration of Philip Embury and Paul and Barbara Heck from Ireland to New York. Its existing constitution dates from 1786, its form of discipline from 1787; its two superintendents have since grown to thirteen bishops. Asbury's 'Journal' shows him to have been a man of simple and winning character, administrative power, and pithy expression; his piety is both frank and deep. He died unmarried, 31 March 1816.

 ASCHAM, ANTHONY (fl. 1553), astrologer, studied at Cambridge, became M.B. in 1540, and in 1553 was presented by Edward VI to the vicarage of Burneston, Yorkshire. He is probably to be identified with Anthony, the brother of Roger Ascham (cf. Vita Axchami in  Works, ed. Giles, iv. 307). His works are as follows: 1. 'A Little Herbal,' by Ant. Askam, 1550. 2. 'Anthonie Ascham his Treatise of Astronomie, declaring what Herbs and all Kinde of Medicines are appropriate, and also under the influence of the Planets, Signs, & Constellations,' 1550. 3. 'A Treatise of Astronomy, declaring the Leap Year and what is the Cause thereof; and how to know St. Matthis Day for ever, with the marvellous motion of the Sun both in his proper circle, and by the moving that he hath of the 10th, 9th, and 8th sphere,' London, 1552, 8vo. 4. 'A Prognostication and an Almanack made for the Year of our Lord God, 1550.' 5. 'An Almanacke or Prognostication,' &c., for 1552. 6. The like for 1555. 7. The like for 1557. 8. 'Treatise made 1547 of the State and Disposition of the World, with the alteration and changing thereof through the highest planets, called Maxima, Major, Media, and Minor, declaring the very time of the day, houre, and minute that God created the Sunne, Moone, and Starres, and the places where they were first set in the Heavens and the beginning of their movings,