Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/161

 of Chamberlainewood in St. Paul's Cathedral, and subsequently of Wenlocksbarn. On 16 Jan. 1545-6, May, with Matthew Parker and John Redman, were empowered to inquire into the possessions of the several colleges in Cambridge, and to ascertain how the statutes were Kept, and he accompanied Parker to Hampton Court to present a summary of their labours to the king, with the result that the colleges were saved from dissolution. On 8 Feb. 1545-6 he succeeded John Incent as dean of St. Paul's. In August 1546 he and Sir [q. v.] were despatched to Calais to treat with commissaries of the king of France. Sir William terms his colleague 'a man of the most honest sort, wise, discrete, and well lernyd, and one that shall be very mete to sarve his Majestie many wayes.' In the same year he was on the commission to reform the ecclesiastical laws.

The accession of Edward VI and the more vigorous prosecution of the Reformation brought May into still greater prominence, and there were few ecclesiastical measures in which he was not concerned. In September 1547 he appeared in St. Paul's Cathedral with the other commissioners for the execution of the edict of the council which commanded the destruction of images in churches and the discontinuance of all customs held to be superstitious, not in the cathedral only, but in all its precincts. On 14 Feb. 1548 he sanctioned by his presence the chanting of the litany and the reading of the gospel and epistle in English (Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed., p. 55); he consented to the abolition of all obits and chantries, though the loss to himself must have been considerable; on the second Sunday in Lent, after a sermon by [q. v.], the 'Sacrament of the Altar' in St. Paul's Cathedral was pulled down by May's command, and lie administered the communion at a table. In 1547 he became one of the royal visitors, visited in that capacity the dioceses of Salisbury, Exeter, Bristol, Bath and Wells, and Gloucester, and was present at convocation; in the following year he was on the commission for the visitation of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the college of Eton (Cal. State Papers, 1547-80, p. 11). He was a strong advocate of liturgical revision, and was on both commissions appointed to confer concerning the ecclesiastical laws (, Ecclesiastical Memorials, II. i. 531) and the drawing up of the Book of Common Prayer. In January 1550 he was on a commission against anabaptists, on another to assist the lord keeper, and on a third to try Bonner (cf., Acts and Monuments, i. 748-800, for a full account of its proceedings). On 12 April 1550 he officiated at the installation by proxy of Kidley as bishop of London, and in the sixth year of Edward he was master of requests.

On Mary's accession May lost all his preferments, including the presidency of Queens' College, which he had hitherto retained, but he lived quietly and unmolested. Willis even states that he was made rector of Pulham in Norfolk in 1557, and had other benefices given him at this time, including the rectory of Long Stanton St. Michael, Cambridgeshire, on 3 Dec. 1557, but this is probably a confusion with another May (cf. Addit. MS. 5808, f. 130), for May, in addition to his conduct during Edward's reign, was married, and this would have proved an insuperable bar to preferment in Mary's reign.

The accession of Elizabeth again brought May into favour; on 23 June 1559 he was reinstated in the deanery of St. Paul's, and all his preferments were restored to him, including the presidency of Queens' College; in the same year he was put on the university commission and on the commission for the revision of the prayer-book. Parker in his 'History of Cambridge' wrongly states that he became vice-chancellor in 1560 (cf. Addit. MS. 5808, f. 130). On 8 Aug. 1560 by the queen's recommendation he was elected archbishop of York, but died on the same day at London. He was buried in the choir of his deanery, and an epitaph in Latin elegiacs commemorated his virtues until it was defaced by the fire of 1666. His funeral sermon was preached by Grindal.

May is said to have been of a mild and generous character; he was a genuine believer in the doctrines of the reformation, and Elizabeth held him in high esteem. He married the widow of Dr. Heynes, his predecessor in the presidency of Queens' College, and left a daughter seven years old at the date of his death, who became the wife of John Tedcastel of Barking, Essex.