Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/337

 attention of the Short parliament to his grievances (cf. A Draught of the Contract about Salt on the behalf of Nicholas Murford, also a Proposition made by Thomas Horth, Merchant, and other Owners of Salt Pans at North and South Shields, and another Petition in the behalf of the Town of Yarmouth. The consideration whereof is humbly presented to the Houses of Parliament, 1640?). But he only succeeded in obtaining a respite for the payment of some arrears of salt duty (Cal. State Papers, 1640, p. 15). On like grounds he involved himself in a dispute with the corporation of Southampton (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. iii. 133). In 1652 Murford was a prisoner for debt in the Fleet, and petitioned Cromwell for the repayment of the 13,000l. which his father had devoted to public objects in 1632, and which Charles I, he said, had undertaken to repay (Mem. Sacra, Ded.). He wrote an elegy on a daughter Amy (Fragmenta Poetica, C2.).

Murford dabbled in literature, and produced two volumes of pedestrian verse. The earlier, ‘Fragmenta Poetica, or Miscelanies of Poetical Musings, Moral and Divine,’ printed for Humphrey Moseley in 1650, is a rare book (Brit. Mus.). Among the writers of commendatory verse, prefixed to it, are Thomas Parker, M.D., and Nicholas Toll, pastor at Lynn. A ‘satyre’ is addressed to Martin Holbeach, the traveller. One song was ‘made at my last coming out of Germany,’ another is dated from Embden. A portrait of the author was inserted, and was afterwards altered and made to serve as a portrait of James Forbes, (1629?–1712) [q. v.] Murford's second work was not printed; it is extant among the British Museum manuscripts (Addit MS. 28602). Its title runs: ‘Memoria sacra: or Offertures unto the Fragrant Memory of the Right Honourable Henry Ireton (late) Lord Deputy of Ireland. Intended to have been humbly presented at his Funerall. By a Nurschild of Maro. Anagr. Fui Ireton.’ The dedication ‘to his excellency (my noblist patron, the Lord General Cromwell)’ is dated 8 Feb. 1651–2. The elegy is poor doggerel. In the opening verses, called ‘The Sigh,’ passing allusion is made to James Howell and Sir Philip Sidney. Some verses addressed by Murford to William Lilly, the astrologer, are among the Ashmolean MSS. at Oxford.

 MURGATROID, MICHAEL (1551–1608), author, born in Yorkshire in November 1551, was educated at the expense of his kinsman (probably uncle), Richard Gascoigne, a gentleman of that county. He matriculated as a pensioner of Jesus College, Cambridge, in June 1573, graduated B.A. in 1576-7, was fellow from 1577 until 1600, and commenced M.A. in 1580. He was Greek reader of his college, and subsequently became secretary to Archbishop Whitgift, then comptroller, and ultimately steward of his household, and commissary of the faculties. He died on 3 April 1608 at Waddon, near Croydon, Surrey, where he leased a farm from George and John Whitgift (Probate Act Book, P.C.C. 1605-1609), and was buried on the 12th in the chancel of Croydon Church, as near Archbishop Whitgift as possible. On the east wall of the chantry of St. Nicholas in the old church was his monument, having under a recessed arch his statue clad in a black gown, and kneeling at a desk, with inscriptions over his head and under his feet. By his marriage on 26 April 1602 to Anne, widow of a Mr. Yeomans and sister of Robert Bickerstaffe, he left a daughter, Mary. Another child was born posthumously (, Collectanea, ii. 294). A son-in-law, George Yeomans, he set up as a yeoman at Waddon. One of the witnesses to his will (P.C.C. 44, Windebanck) was his 'cousin,' George Gascoigne.

Murgatroid was author of: 1. 'Michaelis Murgertod de Græcarum disciplinarian laudibus oratio: cum epistolis 2; et versibus Johanni Bell, Collegii Jesus Cantab, præfecto, inscriptis; et Oratione cum Aristotelis Meteorologica exponeret habita;' it is Harleian MS. 4159. The first oration was delivered at college. 2. 'Memoirs of affairs in Church and State in Archbishop Whitgift's time,' among the Lambeth MSS. (No. 178, f. 1). 3. 'Ad Domini Richardi Cosini tumulum,' Latin verses in the university collection on the death of Dr. Cosin, 1598.

 MURIMUTH, ADAM (1275?–1347), historian, was born between Michaelmas 1274 and Michaelmas 1275. His family apparently belonged to Fifield, Oxfordshire, where a John de Muremuth occurs as lord of the manor in 1316; of other members of the family, Richard de Murimuth occurs as one of the royal clerks in 1328-9 (Cal. Pat. Rolls Edward III, 1327-30, pp. 329, 360). as dean of Wimborne in 1338, and held the prebends of Oxgate, at St. Paul's, 1340-54, and Banbury, Lincoln, in 1352. An Adam Murimuth, junior, probably held the prebend of Harleston, St. Paul's; he was rector of Thur-