Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/14

 for the renewal of the truce with France (Fœdera, ii. 898). On 26 Nov. 1335 he was made archdeacon of Ely. On 15 Nov. 1338 he was again a commissioner to treat with France, and in 1339-40 was employed on a mission to the pope to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of Hugh le Despenser (ib. ii. 1065, 1119). On 15 July 1341 Offord was once more a commissioner to treat with France, and in this capacity was ordered to attend at Aunteyn, near Toumay, on 3 Feb. 1342; later in the same year he was employed in Flanders and Brabant to conduct the negotiations with France in conjunction with Edward's allies in those quarters (ib. ii. 1168, 1185, 1191, 1196, 1199,1228). Previously to 4 Oct. 1342 Offord was appointed keeper of the privy seal, in which capacity he had on that date charge of the great seal (ib. ii. 1213). On 29 Aug. 1343 he was appointed to treat for peace before the pope, but on 29 Nov. the mission was postponed (ib. ii. 1232, 1239). On 2 Dec. Andrew Offord was despatched to the French and Roman courts to procure safe-conducts for his brother and the other commissioners who were going abroad about Easter (, pp. 152-3). On 11 April 1344 John Offord was made dean of Lincoln by the pope, who had been induced to confer the post on him by William Bateman, bishop of Norwich [q. v.] (ib. p. 167 ;, ii. 32) ; he was admitted on 28 Aug. 1344, but was not installed till 11 Sept. 1345. On 3 Aug. Offord was again nominated one of the commissioners to go to the pope (Fœdera, iii. 18, 19), though from the account given by Murimuth (Chronicle, pp. 158-9) it would seem it was finally decided in a council held at London on 11 Aug. to send Offord and Sir Hugh Neville to the Roman court. They must have started immediately, for early in October despatches arrived from Offord at Avignon as to proposed ways of arranging peace (ib. p. 159). On 26 Oct. instructions were sent to Offord, who is now described as the king's secretary, to procure a dispensation for the Prince of Wales's marriage with a daughter of the Duke of Brabant (Fœdera, iii. 25). Neville returned to England at Christmas, but Offord remained at Avignon till the end of Lent, when, seeing that their negotiations would be fruitless, he and his coUeagne, William Bateman, left the papal court abruptly. Murimuth says that their departure was due to a suspicion that the proposed expedition of Luis de la Cerda to the Canary Islands was intended to be diverted against England. Offord reached England soon after Easter. At Michaelmas letters arrived from the pope, and a council, at which Offord was present, was summoned at Westminster on 16 Oct. to consider them. In the midst of the deliberations on 26 Oct. Offord was appointed chancellor, a post which for seven years previously had been held by laymen (, p. 177). On 8 Nov. Offord was appointed to treat with the papal nuncio (Fœdera, iii. 02). On 1 July 1346 he was appointed to arrange with the merchants for loans for Edward's expedition to France (ib. iii. 84). After the death of Archbishop Stratford, Offord was papally provided to the see of Canterbury on 24 Sept. 1348. He received custody of the temporalities on 27 Nov., but before he had received the pall or consecration he died of the plague at Tottenham on 20 May 1349. He had retained the chancellorship till his death ; the seal was surrendered by his brother Andrew on 21 May (Fœdera, iii. 185). Offord was buried by night at Christchurch, Canterbury, on 7 June. Birchington describes him as a man of great eloquence and wary in counsel (Anglia Sacra, i. 42). William Dene says that at the time of his appointment to the archbishopric he was weak and paralytic, and that he owed his preferment to lavish bribery (ib. i. 118).

 O'FIHELY, MAURICE (d. 1513), archbishop of Tuam, is generally known as Mauritius de Portu. He was a native of co. Cork, a Franciscan friar, and Wood and others say that he studied at Oxford. As he describe himself as 'Master of Arts,' he may have taken that degree at Oxford before entering the Minorite order. He became regent of the Franciscan schools at Milan in 1488, and regent doctor of theology in 1491 at Padua, where he was still lecturing publicly on theology in 1499, 1504, and 1506. He is said to have acted for some years as principal superintendent of the press set up by Ottaviano Scot to at Venice, but of this no satisfactory evidence is forthcoming. He was minister in Ireland in 1506, and took part in deposing the general minister, Ægidius Delphmus, in the first capitulum generalissimum at Rome in that year. In 1506 also he was made archbishop of Tuam by Julius H. He continued to reside in Italy, and was present at the Lateran council in 1612. He at length departed to Ireland, but died at Galway in 1513, and was buried among the Grey friars there. He is chiefly known as the editor of many of the works of Duns Scotus. He edited with omissions, expansions, and explanatory notes, the following treatisee of the subtle 