Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/341

 Their life was so irksome that in the following winter certain of the cardinals made a conspiracy against the pope, by which they proposed to limit his despotic power by the establishment of a council. The secret, however, was betrayed to Urban; on 11 Jan. 1385 he called before him six of the cardinals, including Easton, whom it was said (, Hist. Anglic, ii. 197, ed. Riley) he feared above the rest ‘propter profunditatem sensus et scientiæ,’ and thrust them into a noisome and reeking dungeon. They were charged with a plot against the pope's life, examined and tortured, but to no purpose except to amuse the ferocious pope. On 5 June Easton was deprived of his deanery of York (, l. c). When shortly afterwards the siege of Nocera compelled Urban to make his escape thence, he took his prisoners with him, and after long wanderings settled his court at Genoa (September). Towards the end of the following year, however, desiring again to change his residence, he put the captive cardinals to death to save trouble, with the exception only of Easton, who had implored help from England. He seems to have written a letter or tract ‘De sua calamitate’ to the monks of his order, who moved Richard II to intervene on his behalf (, Selden, MS. supra 64, f. 7, Bodl. Libr.) The pope, therefore, merely sent him away ( says) ‘ut pauperem monachum et solivagum,’ to remain still for a while in the custody of one of his chamberlains, a Frenchman. Easton lost his English benefice and was degraded from his cardinalship either now or in the previous year (cf. Chron. Angl. p. 362, ed. Thompson, 1874); he was not restored to the latter dignity until the death of Urban. One of the first acts of his successor, Boniface IX, 18 Dec. 1389, was to perform this act of justice and to write a letter of commendation for Easton to the English parliament (, ii. 648 ). It is possible that this letter had something to do with the cardinal's return to England. At least he is known to have held the prebend of Yetminster Secunda in Salisbury Cathedral some time after 1388 but before 1392 (, Fasti Eccl. Saresb. p. 436), when he exchanged for the living of Hecham (evidently Heygham) in the diocese of Norwich. He died at last in Rome, 15 Sept. 1397 (according to his epitaph,, ii. 649 ), or 20 Oct. (ib. 712 b), and was there buried in the church of his title.

Easton's writings, not one of which is known to be extant, are the following:— Easton is also stated to have been the author of the office for the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin, July 2 (, ii. 648 ).
 * 1) ‘De Potestate Ecclesiæ.’
 * 2) ‘Defensorium Ecclesiæ’ (both these works, MS. ubi supra, found in the possession of John Whithamstede; the latter was preserved in the Cottonian MS. Otho B. iv. since burnt; and the book entitled 'Defensorium Ecclesiasticæ Potestatis,’ which Bale quotes ‘ex notulis cuiusdam Johannis,’ looks as though it arose from a confusion of the two works named, so that it does not appear in Bale's printed work).
 * 3) ‘De Electione Pontificis,’ presumably the evidence he gave, before his creation as cardinal, with reference to the election of Urban VI (, ii. 648 ).
 * 4) ‘De modo conferendi Beneficia.’
 * 5) ‘De forma procedendi contra Hæreticos.’
 * 6) ‘Opus Vitæ contra Hæreticos.’
 * 7) ‘Perfectio Vitæ Spiritualis.’
 * 8) ‘Dialogus Regis et Episcopi.’
 * 9) ‘De Communicatione Idiomatum.’
 * 10) ‘De Diversitate Translationum’ (possibly an extract from one of Easton's Hebrew treatises).
 * 11) ‘De Veritate Catholica,’ Græce.
 * 12) ‘Meteora Aristotelis,’ Græce.Easton is credited with a Latin version of the Hebrew bible, of which Robert Wakefield says he had a copy complete but for the psalter; the book, however, was stolen from him by Richard Colier, Carmelite, afterwards vicar of Sittingbourne (De cod. Hebr. incorruptione, sign. H. ii. verso, printed circa 1533-4). Easton's ‘Psalterium Hebraicum’ is mentioned separately by Bale, together with ‘Postilla Hebraica,’ ‘Alphabetum Judæorum,’ Hebraice (possibly one work, ‘Postilla &hellip; in Alphabetum;’ cf., Bibl. Hebr. iii. 70).
 * 13) ‘Expositio Levitici.’
 * 14) ‘Hebraica Saraceni.’
 * 15) ‘Hebraica Jarchi Salomonis.’ It may be conjectured that some at least of the foregoing are simply transcripts made by or for Easton. To this list, which is given by Bale, Tanner adds:
 * 16) ‘Epistolæ duæ de Canonizatione sanctæ Brigidæ,’ and
 * 17) ‘Defensorium illustris sanctæ Brigidæ &hellip; articulis xlii.;’ both of which were preserved in the cathedral library at Lincoln.



EASTWICK, EDWARD BACKHOUSE (1814–1883), orientalist and diplomatist, was born in 1814 of a family long connected with the East India Company's service, of which his brother became a director. He was educated at Charterhouse and Merton College, Oxford, whence at the