Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/28

 a third is in the Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 15. An abridged translation was published by Pynson in 1516, and in the same year Wynkyn de Worde printed the entire work. The prologue is also printed in the ‘De illust. Henricis.’ The ‘Life of St. Gilbert of Sempringham’ existed in the Cotton. MS. Vitellius D xv, which, with the exception of a few fragments, was destroyed by fire in 1731. The ‘Life of St. Katharine,’ in English verse, is preserved in the Arundel MSS. 20, 168, 396, in the British Museum; and in the Bodleian, Rawlinson MS. 116. This work is referred to by Osbern Bokenham [q. v.], a contemporary of Capgrave, in his ‘Life of St. Katharine’ (Arundel MS. 327; Lyvys of Seyntys, Roxburghe Club, 1835). The prologue is printed in the Rolls edition of Capgrave's ‘Chronicle,’ p. 335. Fragments of the ‘Guide to the Antiquities of Rome’ are found in the fly-leaves of the two manuscripts of the work on the Creeds referred to above, and are also printed with the ‘Chronicle,’ p. 355. The ‘Liber de illustribus Henricis’ was written during the reign of Henry VI, and its object was the praise and glory of that king. It gives the lives of six emperors of Germany, six kings of England, and twelve illustrious men who had borne the name of Henry. The autograph manuscript is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 408; and another copy is in the Cottonian Library, Tiberius A viii. Capgrave's English ‘Chronicle’ also exists in autograph in the University Library, Cambridge, MS. Gg iv. 12; another copy is in Corpus Christi College, MS. 167. This ‘schort remembrauns of elde stories’ seems to have been broken off, probably just before the author's death. In his dedicatory epistle Capgrave easily accommodates himself to the change of dynasty, finding Edward IV's title to be good ‘by Goddis disposition,’ and unhandsomely reflecting on that of his late patron Henry VI as derived ‘by intrusion.’ Both these historical works were edited by F. C. Hingeston for the Rolls Series in 1858.

[Bale's Script. Brit. Cat.; Leland's Commentarii de Scriptoribus Brit. (1709); Jos. Pamphili Chronica Ordinis fratrum Erem. S. Augustini (1581); Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Rolls editions of Capgrave's Chronicle and Liber de illustr. Henricis (1858).]  CAPON, JOHN, alias (d. 1557), bishop of Salisbury, was a Benedictine monk when in 1488 he proceeded B.A. at Cambridge, and a monk of St. John's Abbey in Colchester when ordained deacon on 16 May 1502. His name probably implies that he was a native of Salcot, near Colchester. He became B.D. in 1512, and D.D. in 1515. In the ‘King's Book of Payments’ (Cal. of Hen. VIII, ii. 1441) he is named as receiving 20s. in February 1516 and again in March 1517 for preaching at court. On 16 Feb. 1516–17, being then prior of St. John's, Colchester, he was made abbot of St. Benet's Hulme in Norfolk (Pat. Roll, 8 Hen. VIII, p. 2, m. 20). His brother, Dr. William Capon [q. v.], was chaplain to Cardinal Wolsey, and he himself enjoyed Wolsey's favour. There is extant (Cal. of Hen. VIII, iv. App. 38) a letter from Capon to Wolsey, 10 April 1525, thanking him for ‘continual favours’ towards his ‘promotion and advancement,’ and referring to ‘this bringer, Mr. Cromwell, your servant,’ to explain that the writer is ill and cannot come up as commanded. ‘This bringer’ was afterwards lord privy seal and earl of Essex. As part of a scheme for redeeming first-fruits in Norwich diocese, St. Benet's Abbey was by bull, dated 31 May 1528, of Pope Clement VII (, xiv. 244), and by private act of parliament (, Notitia Monast. p. 333), made directly subject to the bishops of Norwich who were to be ex officio abbots there; but Capon continued abbot and was succeeded by Repps, afterwards bishop of Norwich. In February 1529–30 he was at Cambridge to assist in obtaining a declaration from the university in favour of the king's divorce from Catherine of Arragon. Next month, 15 March 1529–30, he was translated to the abbey of Hyde beside Winchester (Pat. Roll, 21 Hen. VIII, p. 1, m. 19). In July following he signed, as one of the spiritual lords, the letter to the pope praying him to consent to the divorce. In August 1533 he was nominated to the bishopric of Bangor, but the pope would not grant the bull of consecration. However, on 11 April 1534 he had the royal assent, and on the 19th was consecrated bishop of Bangor by Archbishop Cranmer—the second bishop made in England after Henry VIII assumed papal authority. He continued abbot of Hyde, holding the bishopric in commendam, until the suppression, when, with his convent, he surrendered the abbey to the king in April 1539 (? ‘30 Henry VIII’ Public Records Report, viii. App. ii. 24). ‘What wonder,’ exclaims Stevens (Suppl. i. 503), ‘that in a depraved age surrenders should be so universal, when the betrayers of their trust, the sacrilegious Judases, were made bishops!’ Latimer of Worcester and Shaxton of Salisbury resigned their bishoprics in the summer of 1539 in consequence of the ‘Six Articles,’ and Capon was translated to the see of Salisbury on 31 July 1539 (Pat. Roll, 31 Hen. VIII, p. 3, m. 28), which 