Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/164

Lascelles Armstrong and Colonel Lascelles highly deserve an addition of 10s. each per diem above their ordinary pay.' In 1715 Lascelles was appointed deputy quartermaster-general of all H.M. forces. From 1720 to 1725 he was again employed at Dunkirk, and on 1 July 1722 was promoted to the rank of director of engineers, vice Petit, who died on 25 March previous. In 1727, by royal warrant, he was ordered to perform the duties of surveyor of ordnance during Colonel Armstrong's absence abroad. In 1729 he was appointed British commissioner for inspecting the demolition of new works, consisting of quays and jetties constructed by the burghers of Dunkirk, and by the end of December 1730 it was reported that these were entirely razed to the level of the strand to Lascelles's satisfaction. In 1732 he received personal instructions from the king in reference to Dunkirk, and went thither to meet the French and British commissioners.

In 1740 Lascelles was appointed chief engineer to the train of artillery in the expedition under Lord Cathcart to Carthagena, but his services were in such request at home that his place had to be taken by Jonas Moore [q.v.]. By royal warrant, dated 18 Nov. 1741, Lascelles was directed to fill the office of surveyor-general of the ordnance during the illness of Major-general John Armstrong. On 30 April 1742 he was appointed, by letters patent under the great seal, to be master-surveyor of the ordnance, ammunition, and habiliment of war within the Tower of London, the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and all British dominions, and to be chief engineer of Great Britain, in the room of General Armstrong, deceased, at a salary as chief engineer of 501l. 17s. 6d. per annum. This was in addition to his pay of 365l. per annum as director of engineers. By royal warrant of 19 May 1742 he was further appointed assistant and deputy to the lieutenant-general of the ordnance, and to perform the duties of lieutenant-general of the ordnance, so long as the post should remain vacant, at a salary of 300l. per annum. In 1744 he was sent to Ostend to report on the armament and ammunition to be sent thither, and to arrange for repairing and augmenting the fortifications. In 1745 he was appointed, as inspector-general of artillery, to represent the British government at the Hague, to carry out the terms of a convention dated 5 May 1745 between the States-general and George II, and to determine the balance due from Great Britain to the States-general on account of expenditure for artillery and ammunition stipulated to be furnished by Great Britain in the Low Countries.

By royal warrant of 11 April 1750 Lascelles was granted 200l. per annum for life for his long and faithful services. The same year he retired on a pension of 200l. per annum. He died on 1 Nov. 1751, aged 81, having served through twenty-one campaigns and having been present in thirty-six engagements. He was one of the ablest engineers of the time in Europe.

[State Papers; Board of Ordnance Records, Royal Engineers' Records; Gent. Mag. 1751, p. 523.]  LASKI, or À LASCO, JOHN (1499–1560), reformer, was born at the castle of Lask in Poland in 1499. His father, Jaroslaw, baron of Lask, who seems to have claimed descent from Henry de Lacy, third earl of Lincoln [q. v.] (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 332), was successively tribune of Sieradz, palatine or vayvode of Leczyc, and vayvode of Sieradz, and died in 1523. His mother was Susanna of Bakova-Gora, of the family of Novina or Ptomicnczyk. John was the second of three sons, all afterwards famous. In 1510 his uncle, John Laski, primate of Poland, took the boys into his palace at Cracow to direct their education, and when, in March 1513, the archbishop set out for Rome to attend the Lateran council, he took John and his elder brother with him. Thence, about the end of 1514, the two boys were sent with their tutor, John Braniczky, to the university of Bologna, where they probably met Ulrich von Hutten. John remained at Bologna till Christmas 1517–18. His uncle looked after his interests, and in 1517 he became canon of Leczyc, on 30 Dec. 1517 coadjutor to the dean of Gnesen, and in 1518, after a judicious distribution of fourteen hundred gulden at Rome, custodian of Leczyc and canon of Cracow and Plock. In 1521 he was ordained priest and became dean of Gnesen.

In 1523 Laski and his two brothers travelled to Basle, where they met Erasmus. After a short visit to Paris John settled down at Basle for a year in Erasmus's house (end of 1524 to October 1525). He paid certain house expenses, three and a half gulden a month for his room, and bought the reversion to Erasmus's library for three hundred golden crowns (cf. D. Erasmi Epistolæ, ed. 1706, p. 891). He met Hardenberg, with Pellicanus and other reformers, at Basle, and when in October 1525 he returned to Poland, he had probably to some extent adopted their views. Though suspected of reforming tendencies, especially in 1534, he continued to hold and add to his benefices, even after the death of his uncle. He became Bishop of Vesprim in 1529, later provost of Gnesen, and on 21 March