Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/219

 age of eighty, and died May 1726, and was buried at Brackley. Before his death his faculties had decayed; he conceived he had discovered the longitude, and employed his son William in copying his writings to lay before parliament. He is described as being an honest, blunt, and kindly man, but of no great qualifications. He had a large family: John, his heir; Thomas, afterwards a bencher of the Inner Temple, from whom springs the family of Blencowe of Bincham, near Lewes: William; Mary, who married Alexander Prescott, of Tlioby Priory, in Essex; Anne, who married in 1720 Sir E. Probyn, of Newlands, chief baron of the exchequer; Elizabeth; and Susannah, who married R. Jennens, of Princethorp. His third son William, born Jan. 1682-3, was the decipherer [see ]. The estates, with the patronage of Marston St. Lawrence, still continue in the family.

 BLENCOWE, WILLIAM (1683–1712), decipherer, was the third son of [q. v.], knight, baron of the exchequer, by the eldest daughter of the mathematician and decipherer, Dr. Wallis, and was born on 6 Jan. 1682-3. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1701 (List of Oxford Graduates), On the nomination of Archbishop Tenison he became a fellow of All Souls, 21 Dec. 1702, and he was made M.A. in 1704. He was instructed in the art of deciphering by his maternal grandfather, and for his encouragement in the art received the survivorship of his pension of 100l. a year. Wallis died 28 Oct. 1703. As a matter of course Blencowe therefore succeeded him as decipherer to the government, and the statement of a survivor (Gent. Mag. lviii. 586) that he applied for the office 'unrecommended' cannot therefore be accepted as an accurate representation of facts. The salary he ultimately received for the office was 200l. a year (Archives of Ail Souls, 346). He desired a dispensation permitting him to retain his fellowship at All Souls without taking holy orders, and on the warden interposing his veto the queen interfered on his behalf. Ultimately the dispute led to the abolition of the warden's veto on dispensations, and the non-residence of the fellows became from that time a leading characteristic of All Souls College. The statement of Noble that at the trial of Bishop Atterbury he exercised his skill in deciphering certain papers is a mistake, the trial having taken place ten years after his death, In the prime of life Blencowe was attacked by a violent fever, from which he was recovering, when, on 26 Aug. 1712, he shot himself during temporary insanity caused by a relapse. He was buried in All Saints Church, Northampton, where the monument to his memory records that he was a 'man studious of many kinds of learning, particularly of the common law, which he professed and practised with reputation; and of the art of deciphering letters wherein he excelled, and served the public for ten years.'

 BLENERHASSET, THOMAS (1550?–1625?), poet and writer on Ireland, was a younger son of William Blenerhasset of Horsford Park, near Norwich, who died in 1598. He was probably born about 1550, and was, according to his own account, educated at Cambridge without taking a degree. He subsequently entered the army, and was stationed for some years as captain at Guernsey Castle. At the beginning of the seventeenth century he took service with the English in Ireland, and in 1610 was one of the 'undertakers' for the plantation of Ulster. In 1611 he received 2,000 acres at Clancally in Fermanagh, and in 1612 he, with thirty-nine others, appealed to the lord-deputy. Sir Arthur Chichester, to grant them jointly a part of Sligo, 60,000 acres in Fermanagh, and some neighbouring territory, on their undertaking to expend 40,000l. on the land, and to settle upon it 1,000 'able men furnished for all kinds of handiwork,' In his signature to this appeal Blenerhasset describe's himself as being still of Horsford, Norfolk. In 1624 Blenerhasset was stated to own the barony of Lurge and two proportions of Eddernagh and Tullenageane in Fermanagh. According to Ware, the biographer of Irish writers, Blenerhasset died early in the reign of Charles I. His father's will proves him to have been married before 1598, and to have had several children. His eldest brother, Sir Edward Blenerhasset, who shared with him several grants of Irish land, died in 1618.

Blenerhasset's most important literary work was an expansion of the 'Mirrour for Magistrates.' This he accomplished while at Guernsey in 1577. He intended it for the private