Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/322

 man dressed in the black habit of the Benedictines, presenting a poem called the ‘Pilgrim’ (i.e. ‘Pilgrimage of Man’) to Thomas Montacute, earl of Salisbury; (2) in Harl. MS. 2278, 1, ‘Life of St. Edmund,’ the poet presenting his work at St. Edmund's shrine to Henry VI in presence of William Curteis, abbot of Bury; (3) Arundel MS. 119, f. 1, ‘Thebes,’ in the first initial, figure of a black monk on horseback; (4) in Aug. A. iv. ‘Troy-book;’ (5) in Harl. MS. 1766, 3, ‘Fall of Princes;’ (6) in Bodl. MS. Digby, 232, ‘Troy Book;’ (7) in Ashmole MS. 46, ‘Secreta Secretorum,’ author presenting book to the king (defaced).

 LYDIAT, THOMAS (1572–1646), divine and chronologer, son of Christopher Lydiat, was born in 1572 at Alkerton, Oxfordshire, of which living his father was patron. In 1584, at eleven years of age, he gained a scholarship at Winchester College, and passing thence to New College, Oxford, was elected probationer fellow in 1591, and full fellow two years later. He graduated B.A. 3 May 1595, and M.A. 5 Feb. 1598-9. His defective memory and utterance led him to relinquish both the study of divinity and his fellowship in 1603, in order to devote himself to mathematics and chronology. In 1609 he dedicated his 'Emendatio Temporum' to Henry, prince of Wales, who appointed him his chronographer and cosmographer, and took him into his household as reader, granting him an annual pension of 40 marks and the use of his library. During the course of this year he became acquainted with Ussher, afterwards archbishop of Ireland. He spent about two years in Dublin, became fellow of Trinity College 7 March 1610, and graduated M.A. therein the summer of the same year. Ussher procured him rooms in the college and an appointment as reader, with a salary of 31. 6s. 8d. a quarter. The first entry in the account-book is to 'Mr. Lydiat, partly for reading, partly by way of benevolence, 5l, Dec. 23, 1609.' The mastership of a school at Armagh, worth 50l. a year, seems also to have been promised him. Before August 1611 he had returned to London, but he still wrote to Ussher pressing his claim to the mastership, 23 Aug. 1611. The death of the Prince of Wales in 1612 cut off his hopes of preferment, and in the same year, after some hesitation, he accepted the family living of Alkerton, which he had refused during his father's lifetime. The following years he devoted to the study of chronology, and carried on a bitter controversy with Scaliger, whose replies were more notable for abuse than argument (Epist. 29;, Introd. to Lit. of Europe, ii. 294). In the opinion of Ussher and others Lydiat entirety routed his enemy. Lydiat first contrived the octodeseicentenary period, and made other chronological discoveries, which are described in Robert Plot's [q. v.] 'Oxfordshire,' cp. ix. § 17. In 1629 or 1630 he became surety for the debts of his brother, and being unable to pay was committed to prison, first in Bocardo at Oxford, and subsequently in the King's Bench, where he pursued his studies with great diligence, spending what money he could upon books. The efforts of Sir William Boswell, Dr. Robert Pink (warden of New College), Ussher (who is said to have paid 300l. for him), and Laud finally procured his release, upon which he vainly petitioned the king for permission to travel in Turkey, Armenia, and Abyssinia, in order to collect materials for civil and ecclesiastical history. Lydiat's staunch royalism and the uncompromising expression of his opinions brought him under the notice of the parliamentarians. His rectory was pillaged more than once, and he was carried off to prison amid circumstances of great hardship, once to Warwick, and again to Banbury. He died at Alkerton, 3 April 1646, and was buried the next day in the chancel of his church. In 1669 a stone was laid over his grave by the society of New College, who also erected a monument, with an inscription to his memory on a black marble table, at the north end of the east cloister of the college (, Hist. and Antiquities). In person he was of low stature and mean appearance, but Hearne 