Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/176

Mayne John Paine to the English mission, and he became chaplain to Francis Tregian, esq., of Wolveden or Golden, in St. Probus's parish, Cornwall, passing as that gentleman's steward. In June 1577 Dr. William Bradbridge, bishop of Exeter, being on his visitation at Truro, prevailed on Sir Richard Greville, the high sheriff, to search Golden House, and there, says Tonkin, the Cornish historian, ‘the priest was found concealed under an old tower.’ He was imprisoned at Launceston and tried before Sir Roger Manwood [q. v.], chief baron of the exchequer, at the Michaelmas assizes. The act of parliament which made it high treason to receive holy orders abroad had not yet been passed, and it was found difficult to prefer any capital charge against him. Nevertheless, he was tried and condemned to death for denying the queen's spiritual supremacy, saying mass, possessing a printed copy of a bull for a jubilee, and wearing an Agnus Dei. For harbouring the priest, his patron, Sir Francis Tregian, was, by a sentence of premunire, stripped of all his property, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Hallam asserts that Mayne was condemned ‘without any charge against him except his religion’ (Constitutional Hist. ed. 1832, i. 197; cf. English Historical Review, i. 144). He was drawn, hanged, and quartered at Launceston on 29 Nov. 1577. Dr. Oliver states that ‘the skull of the martyr is religiously kept at Lanherne’ in the convent of the Theresian nuns (Catholic Religion in Cornwall, p. 2). He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 Dec. 1886 (Tablet, 15 Jan. 1887, pp. 81, 82). His portrait has been engraved.

 MAYNE, JASPER (1604–1672), archdeacon of Chichester and dramatist, was son of Gasper or Jasper Mayne, ‘gent,’ and was baptised at Hatherleigh, Devonshire, where the family owned a small property, on 23 Nov. 1604 (par. reg.). He was educated at Westminster, and proceeded to Oxford as a servitor of Christ Church in 1623. He there received much encouragement from the dean, Brian Duppa [q. v.], and was elected a student in 1627. Taking holy orders, he graduated B.A. 1628, M.A. 1631, B.D. 1642, and D.D. 1646. Like his patron, Duppa, Mayne had much literary taste, and was soon known in the university as ‘a quaint preacher and noted poet.’ When William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke [q. v.], chancellor of the university, died in 1630, he wrote an English elegy (cf. Corpus Christi Coll. Oxon. MSS. clxxvi. 3, cccxxviii. 52). English poems by him also figure in the collections of verse issued by the university in 1633 on Charles I's recovery from illness, in 1638 on Queen Henrietta's convalescence after confinement, and in 1643 on the queen's return from the continent. His university friends included William Cartwright [q. v.], the dramatist and divine, also a member of Christ Church, and he contributed commendatory verses to the collected edition of Cartwright's plays and poems, 1651. Meanwhile he mixed in London literary society, and was one of those who wrote ‘to the memory of Ben Jonson’ in ‘Jonsonus Virbius’ (1637); and verses by him in honour of Beaumont and Fletcher were first printed in the folio of 1679. He is also, very doubtfully, credited with the admirable elegy superscribed ‘I. M. S.,’ and prefixed to the 1632 folio of Shakespeare's ‘Works.’ ‘I. M. S.’ has been interpreted as ‘Jasper Mayne, Student,’ but the lines are of far superior quality to any assigned with certainty to Mayne (, Centurie of Praise, New Shakspere Soc., pp. 190–4).

Mayne himself attempted playwriting, and in 1639 completed the ‘City Match,’ a domestic comedy of much sprightliness, although somewhat confused in plot. It was acted both at the court at Whitehall and at the Blackfriars Theatre, and was published at Oxford. Its full title ran: ‘The City Match. A Comœdye. Presented to the King and Qveene at White-Hall. Acted since at Black-Friers by his Maiesties Servants. Horat. de Arte Poet. Versibus exponi Tragicis res Comica non vult. Oxford, Printed by Leonard Lichfield, Printer to the University. Anno Dom. M.D.C. ,’