Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/344

Leddra month later he proceeded northward to Massachusetts, and was welcomed by the few quakers in Salem. A meeting in the woods about five miles distant was broken up; Leddra was taken back to Salem, and thence to Boston, where he was imprisoned, kept without food, and for refusing to work was flogged. With an old man named William Brend and John Rous [q. v.] he was soon subjected to such indignities that the inhabitants of the town were moved to pay the prison fees and defray the cost of removing Leddra and his fellow-prisoners to Providence, on pain of death should they return.

Undaunted by the execution of Robinson, Stevenson, and Mary Dyer in 1659 and 1660, Leddra returned at once and openly to Boston to visit some of his co-religionists in prison. In April 1659 he was once more arrested and imprisoned, but was ultimately released. In October 1660 he went through the same experiences in Boston, and spent the winter chained to a log of wood in an open cell. On 9 Jan. 1661 he was brought before Governor Endicott, his secretary Rawson, and the court of assistants. He was told that he had incurred the penalty of death, and upon asking what evil he had done was informed that he had refused to put off his hat, and had said 'thee and thou.' 'Will you then.' he asked, 'hang me for speaking English, and for not putting off my clothes?' 'A man may speak treason in English,' was the answer. He was condemned, and was executed on Boston Common on 14 Jan. He was the last quaker executed in New England, and before the close of the year an order for the liberation of all in prison was obtained by Edward Burrough [q. v.] from Charles II.

During his imprisonment Leddra wrote an epistle to Friends in New England, and another dated the day before his death. These were immediately printed in London as 'An Appendix to New England Judged.' 1661; reprinted 1667, together with 'The Copy of a Letter from a Stranger to his Friend, touching the Death of W. Leddra,' dated Boston, 26 March 1661. In the following year these tracts were translated into Dutch, and printed in Amsterdam (Collectio, p. 242). They were reprinted London 1669 and 1770, also by Sewel and Besse. The first was reprinted in 'New England Judged.' ed. 1703.  LEDEREDE or LEDRED, RICHARD (fl. 1360), bishop of Ossory, an English member of the order of St. Francis, was appointed to the see of Ossory in Ireland in 316 by Pone John XXII. By the pope's order he received consecration from Nicholas, bishop of Ostia. Soon after his installation at Kilkenny Lederede convened a synod of the diocese, the acts of which are extant in the manuscript styled 'The Red Book of Ossory,' and by order of Edward II he caused a valuation of his diocese to be made for purposes of taxation. Lederede, about 1324, engaged in proceedings against Alice Kyteler [see, or ], whom he accused of heresy and sorcery. He also instigated a prosecution on similar charges against Arnold le Poer, seneschal of Kilkenny, and became involved in intentions with the chief administrators of the English government in Ireland. He was publicly excommunicated by his metropolitan, Alexander de Bicknor, archbishop of Dublin, who brought many charges against him. Lederede retorted with accusations against De Bicknor, appealed to the pope, and absented himself nom Ireland for some years, in contravention of the king's orders. He eventually obtained pardon from the king and absolution from the pope (cf., History of the Viceroys of Ireland).

Lederede after his return to Kilkenny had again recourse to violent measures. A petition was addressed from his diocese to Edward III for his removal on the ground that he was an insatiable extortioner and affected by disease and insanity. He died at Kilkenny in 1360, nearly one hundred years old, and was buried in his cathedral, in decorating which he is said to have expended considerable sums.

Latin verses ascribed to Lederede are extant in the 'Red Book of Ossory.' A memorandum states that they were composed by the bishop for the clergy of the cathedral, and that they were to be sung on great festivals and other occasions instead of secular songs. The pieces are sixty in number, and devoted mainly to the nativity, sufferings, and resurrection of Christ, and the virtues and afflictions of his mother. The author, in some verses, prays for temporal as well as spiritual favours, and in others descants on the wickedness of the age and the transitory character of worldly grandeur. These verses were published for the first time by the author of the present notice, in the tenth report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, App. v. (1885). A reproduction of the initial page of the verses in the 'Red Book of Ossory' is given in the 'Facsimiles of National MSS. 