Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/412

Sharp Law of Nature’ (1777; 2nd ed. 1809); ‘The Ancient and only True Legal Means of National Defence by a free Militia’ (3rd ed. 1782); ‘On Duelling’ (1790); ‘Three Tracts on the Syntax and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Tongue’ (1804), and on ‘The System of Colonial Law’ (1807).

[The Memoirs of Granville Sharp by Prince Hoare, 1820, 4to, were compiled from Sharp's manuscripts; the publication of a selection of his letters was projected but not carried out; see also Gent. Mag. 1813 ii. 89–90, 1814 ii. 431, 1818 ii. 489; Georgian Era, iii. 552; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century; Sir James Stephen's Essays in Eccl. Biogr.; Wordsworth's Eccl. Biogr. 1818, pref.; Fleming's Papacy, 1848, p. 43; Faulkner's Fulham; Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey, pp. 248, 280, 316; Clarkson's History of the Abolition of Slavery, i. 66–78; Catalogue of Devonshire House Portraits; Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, i. 11; works in British Museum Library.]

 SHARP, JACK (d. 1431), lollard rebel, was a weaver of Abingdon. His real name is given in the official documents as William Perkins (Ordinances of Privy Council, iv. 100, 107), but some of the chronicles call him Mandeville (, Collectanea, i. 491;, p. 602; ‘ganeo trino nomine nominatus’—, i. 63). In the spring of 1431, when he was bailiff of Abingdon, Perkins placed himself at the head of a movement among the lollards of the southern midlands against the stern repression to which they had for many years been subjected. Under the assumed name of ‘Jack Sharp of Wigmoresland’ he began to circulate handbills reviving the scheme of 1410 for the diversion of church endowments to useful purposes (ib. i. 453). The proposal took the form of a petition to the sitting parliament, but the reference to Wigmore, the centre of the Duke of York's influence in the Welsh march, contained a veiled menace to the Lancastrian government. Rumour perhaps exaggerated their designs. Sharp was afterwards reported to have confessed ‘that he would have made priests' heads as cheap as sheeps' heads, so that he would have sold three for a penny’.

The council empowered the Duke of Gloucester, who was acting as regent during the king's absence in France, to suppress the movement, and a reward of twenty pounds was offered to any who should bring to justice Sharp and the ‘bill casters and keepers’ (Ordinances, iv. 88, 99, 107). On Thursday, 17 May, William Warberton (or Warbleton), who claimed to have denounced Perkins before the proclamation, was informed that he had taken refuge in Oxford, and secured his arrest (ib.; Issues, p. 415). The mayor of Salisbury also obtained a reward for assisting in establishing the identity of Sharp by arresting bill-distributors from Abingdon (Ordinances, iv. 99). Sharp was tried and condemned at Oxford before the Duke of Gloucester, and five days after his capture executed at Oxford or Abingdon (Chron. ed. Davies;, p. 602; , i. 491). His head was set up on London Bridge, and his quarters distributed between Oxford, Abingdon, and other towns (, p. 172).

[Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas; Devon's Issues of the Exchequer; Leland's Collectanea, ed. Hearne; Amundesham's Annals in Rolls Ser.; Chron. ed. Davies, and Gregory's Chron. ed. Camden Soc.; Fabyan and Hall, ed. Ellis; Chron. ed. Giles, p. 18; Chron. of London, p. 119; Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd ser. i. 103; Ramsay's Lancaster and York.]

 SHARP, JAMES (1613–1679), archbishop of St. Andrews, son of William Sharp, factor of the Earl of Findlater, by Isabel Lesley, daughter of Lesley of Kininvy, a relative of the Earl of Rothes, was born at Banff Castle, where his father then resided, on 4 May 1613. Sharp's grandfather, David Sharp, a native of Perthshire, has been sneered at as ‘a piper’ (Life of Mr. James Sharpe, printed in 1719), but if he played the bagpipes (which was by the strict covenanters accounted sinful), this was not his profession, for he became a successful merchant in Aberdeen, and took to wife a lady of good family, that of the Haliburtons of Pitcur. Being intended for the church, Sharp entered King's College, Aberdeen, where he graduated M.A. in 1637. He is said to have been expelled from the college in 1638 for refusing to take the covenant; at any rate he went south to Oxford, where, according to his biographer, Thomas Stephen, he would have taken episcopal orders but for a serious illness, which made it advisable for him to return to Scotland. Not long after his return he was—on the recommendation, it is said, of Alexander Henderson [q. v.] —appointed professor of philosophy in the university of St. Andrews; and in 1648 he was presented by the Earl of Crawford to the church of Crail, where he was admitted on 27 Jan. 1648–9. In 1650 he was elected one of the ministers of Edinburgh by the town council, but his translation was refused by the presbytery, and, although agreed to by the general assembly, of which he was that year a member, the invasion under Cromwell prevented his acceptance of the call.

The proposal to translate Sharp to Edin-