Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/284

 Cole 1702, 8vo (portrait). 5. Medical cases in 'Philosophical Transactions,' vol. xv. 1685: De falsa graviditate, p. 1045; De prænobili femina apoplexia perempta (Lady Pakington), p. 1068; Historiæ convulsionum, &c., pp. 1113-15; Letter on stones voided per penem, p. 1162.

 COLE, WILLIAM (1714–1782), the Cambridge antiquary, was descended from a family of respectable yeomen, who lived for several generations in that part of Cambridgeshire which borders on Essex. The antiquary's father, William Cole of Baberham, Cambridgeshire, married four times, his third wife, the mother of the antiquary, being Elizabeth, daughter of Theophilus Tuer, merchant, of Cambridge, and widow of Charles Apthorp. The son was born at Little Abington, a village near Baberham, on 3 Aug. 1714, and received his early education in private schools at Cambridge, Linton, and Saffron Walden. From Saffron Walden he was removed to Eton, where he remained for five years on the foundation. His principal friend and companion there was Horace Walpole, who used even at that early period to make jocular remarks on his inclination to Roman Catholicism. While yet a boy he was in the habit of copying monumental inscriptions, and drawing coats of arms in trick from the windows of churches. On leaving Eton he was admitted a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, 25 Jan. 1733, and in April 1734 he obtained one of the Freeman scholarships in that college; but in 1735, on the death of his father, from whom he inherited a handsome estate, he entered himself as a fellow-commoner of Clare Hall, and the next year migrated to King's College, where he had a younger brother, then a fellow (Addit. MS. 5808, f. 58). In April 1736 he travelled for a short time in French Flanders with his half-brother, Dr. Stephen Apthorp, and in October of the same year he took the degree of B.A. In 1737, in consequence of bad health, he went to Lisbon for six months, returning to college in May 1738. The following year he was put into the commission of the peace for Cambridgeshire, in which capacity he acted for many years. In 1740 his friend Lord Montfort, lord-lieutenant of the county, appointed him one of his deputy-lieutenants, and in the same year he commenced M.A. In 1743, his health being again impaired, he took another trip through Flanders, described in his manuscript collections. During his travels on the continent he formed lasting friendships with Alban Butler [q.v.] and other catholic ecclesiastics. On Christmas day 1744 he was ordained deacon, and for some time officiated as curate to Dr. Abraham Oakes, rector of Withersfield, Suffolk. In 1745, after being admitted to priest's orders, he was appointed chaplain to Thomas, earl of Kinnoul, in which office he was continued by the succeeding earl, George (ib. 5808, f. 73b). He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1747. In 1749 he was residing at Haddenham in the Isle of Ely, and on 25 Aug. in that year he was admitted to the freedom of the city of Glasgow (ib. 6402, f. 132). In the same year he was collated to the rectory of Hornsey, Middlesex, by Bishop Sherlock. 'Sherlock,' says Cole, 'gave me the rectory of Hornsey, yet his manner was such that I soon resigned it again to him. I had not been educated in episcopal trammels, and liked a more liberal behaviour; yet he was a great man, and I believe an honest man.' The fact, however, was that Cole was inducted on 25 Nov.; but as he found that the parsonage-house required rebuilding, and understood that the bishop insisted upon his residing, he sent in his resignation within a month. This the bishop refused to accept, because Cole had rendered himself liable for dilapidations and other expenses by being instituted to the benefice. Cole continued, therefore, to hold the rectory till 9 Jan. 1751, when he resigned it in favour of Mr. Territ. During this time he never resided, but employed a curate, the Rev. Matthew Mapletoft. In 1753 he quitted the university on being presented by his early friend and patron, Browne Willis, to the rectory of Bletchley, Buckinghamshire.

In 1765 he made a lengthened tour in France with Horace Walpole. Cole's intention was to find out some quiet and cheap spot in Normandy or elsewhere to which he might eventually retire. It has been conjectured, with great appearance of probability, that this scheme of settling permanently in France originated in a wish to openly join the Roman church, for in his manuscripts he takes little or no pains to conceal his partiality for the catholic religion and his contempt for the English and German reformers. But he was dissuaded from carrying out his design of self-banishment chiefly by the earnest representations of Walpole, who pointed out to him that under the droit d'aubaine the king of France would become the possessor of all Cole's cherished manuscripts, which even at this period consisted of no fewer than forty folio volumes. 'They are,' he wrote to Walpole (17 March 1765), 'my only delight--they are my wife and children--they have been, in short, my 