Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/107

 which would restore her to him for ever. The bishop, however, consoled himself for his loss the next year, when, being over sixty, he married a young lady of twenty-three, the junior of his eldest daughter, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Reynolds of Bury, by whom he had six more daughters. In 1753 Mrs. Butts took as her second husband Mr. George Green, the receiver of the late bishop's rents. The union was an unhappy one, the parties separated, and Mrs. Green retired to Chichester, where she died 3 Dec. 1781, at the age of sixty-nine. Butts printed nothing beyond a few charges and occasional discourses. The following may be mentioned: 1. A Sermon preached at Norwich on the day of the accession of George II, 1719. 2. A Charge at the primary visitation of the diocese of Norwich, 1735, London, 4to, 1736. 3. Sermon on Ps. cxxii. 6, preached before the House of Lords in Westminster Abbey, on the anniversary of the accession, 11 June 1737, London, 4to, 1737. 4. Charge delivered at the primary visitation of the diocese of Ely, London, 4to, 1740.

[Cole MSS. xviii. 140, 233; Bentham's History of Ely; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 80.]  BUTTS, WILLIAM (d. 1545), physician to Henry VIII, was born in Norfolk, and educated at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, being admitted to the degrees of B. A. in 1506, M.A. 1509, and M.D. 1518. In the following year he applied for incorporation into the university of Oxford, but Wood could find no record of his incorporation. In 1524 he took a lease of St. Mary's Hostel, and was therefore probably principal of the house (Athenæ Cantab.) ; but he was at the same time practising his profession among the nobility, and from that time to his death he was constantly employed as physician at the court. The king, his queens, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen Mary, the king's natural son, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond, Cardinal Wolsey, the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Thomas Lovell, George Boleyn, and Lord Rochford, are all known to have been his patients. As physician to the king his salary was 100l. a year, afterwards increased by forty marks, and an additional 20l. for attending on the young Duke of Richmond. He was also knighted. As physician to the Princess Mary he received a livery of blue and green damask for himself and two servants, and cloth for an apothecary. His wife was also in the princess's service as one of her gentlewomen, and her portrait was painted by Holbein. The finished picture was exhibited in 1866 at the Royal Academy, and the sketch is at Windsor. It is engraved by Bartolozzi in 'The Court of Henry VIII.' It may fairly be said that the princess owed her life to her physician. Not only did he exert his professional skill in her behalf, but having good reason to suspect that there were plots to poison her, he frightened her governess, Lady Shelton, by telling her that it was commonly reported in London that she was guilty of this crime, and so made her doubly careful of her charge for her own sake. Some writers have spoken of him as being one of the founders of the College of Physicians, but this is an error. The college was founded in 1528, and he did not join till 1529. He does not seem to have held any collegiate office, but he was held in such esteem that he is entered in their books as 'vir gravis, eximia literarum ognitione, singular, judicio, summa experientia et prudentia consilio doctor.'

This praise refers more particularly to his medical life ; but he was a patron of other branches of learning, and a man whose influence with the king was invariably directed to good purposes. When Wolsey was in disgrace Butts tried to reconcile the king to him, and his interposition in favour of Archbishop Cranmer is well known to readers of Shakespeare (Hen. VIII. act v. sc. ii.) In religious matters his sympathies were with the reformation. He attempted in person to convert some of the monks of Sion who refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy, and two men, both prominent reformers, one on the side of religion and the other on the side of learning, Hugh Latimer and Sir John Cheke, both owed their advancement to him. He died 22 Nov. 1545, and was buried at Fulham church. His tomb was against the south wall, close to the altar, and formerly possessed a brass representing him in armour, with a shield bearing his arms : azure, three lozenges gules on a chevron or, between three estoiles or, and a scroll inscribed with the words 'Myn advantage.' Beneath it was a Latin epitaph in elegiacs by his friend Cheke. The tomb and brass are destroyed, but a slab with Cheke's verses, and an inscription stating that it was restored by Leonard Butts of Norfolk in 1627, is inserted in the wall of the tower. The epitaph gives the date of death as 17 Nov., 22 Nov. being found in both inquisitions. The figures had perhaps become nearly illegible and were wrongly restored. All the authors who mention the date of death copy this mistake. He married Margaret Bacon, of Cambridgeshire, and left three sons : Sir William, of Thornage, Norfolk; Thomas, of Great Riburgh, Norfolk, and Edmund, of Barrow, Suffolk. Sir William, junior, was not killed at the battle of Musselburgh, as Blomefield says, but lived till