Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/470

 1553, only six days after her proclamation as queen—a fact hitherto overlooked by Taylor's biographers—the council ordered his arrest and committed him to the custody of the sheriff of Essex (Acts of the Privy Council, 1552–4, pp. 418, 420, 421). If the account given by Foxe is correct, Taylor must have been released and allowed to resume his ministry at Hadleigh. According to the martyrologist, Taylor in March 1553–4 offered strenuous opposition to the performance of mass by a priest in his church at Hadleigh; information having been laid before the council, Taylor was arrested. On 26 March 1554 the council ordered the sheriff of Essex to send him up to London, where he was imprisoned in the king's bench. On 8 May following he signed the confession of faith of the religious prisoners and their protest against the way in which disputations were managed. He was examined on various occasions by Gardiner, whom he charged with breaking his oath to Henry VIII and Edward VI. On 22 Jan. 1554–5 he was condemned to death, on the 29th he was excommunicated, and on 4 Feb. he was degraded by Bonner. He was removed to Hadleigh, and on 9 Feb. was burnt on Aldham Common, near Hadleigh. (Foxe, whose account is confused, says Taylor was in prison a year and nine months from Palm Monday 1553–1554, which would bring it to December 1555; there is a notice of a Rowland Taylor being summoned before the privy council on 24 Oct. 1555 in Acts P. C. 1554–6, p. 189, and Foxe makes Taylor date his will 5 Feb. 1555, which would naturally mean 1555–6; nevertheless Machyn and Wriothesley both place his death in February 1554–5, and that date is confirmed by the despatch of Michiel, the Venetian ambassador; see Cal. State Papers, Venetian, 1555–6, i. 31.) A stone, with an inscription, marks the spot where Taylor was burnt, and in 1818 Dr. Hay Drummond, then rector of Hadleigh, placed a monument near it with a poetical inscription (Gent. Mag. 1818, ii. 390–1). A brass was also placed in Hadleigh church with an inscription to his memory.

Taylor was a man of ability and learning. Foxe represents him as the beau-ideal of a parish priest, and his unblemished and attractive character has made him one of the most famous of the martyrs who suffered in Mary's reign. He is commemorated in many popular poems (cf., Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, ii. 108–10; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. xi. 281, 350). By his wife, whom he married probably about 1539, he had nine children, of whom four survived him. The eldest son's name was Thomas, and a daughter Anne married William Palmer (1539?–1605) [q. v.] His widow married one Wright, a divine (Parker Corresp. p. 221). Jeremy Taylor [q. v.] is said (, Life of Jeremy Taylor) to have been a lineal descendant of Rowland Taylor, but the assertion has not been proved (Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ii. 56).

 TAYLOR, SAMUEL (fl. 1786–1816), stenographer, published his system in London at the price of one guinea in an octavo volume entitled: ‘An Essay intended to establish a Standard for an Universal System of Stenography, or Short-hand Writing, upon such simple & approv'd principles as have never before been offered to the public, whereby a person in a few days may instruct himself to write short hand correctly, & by a little practice cannot fail taking down any discourse deliver'd in public,’ two editions, 1786. The whole book—both introduction and essay—is the production of a master hand and an enthusiast in his art. He says, ‘I practised several of the methods then published, in hopes of becoming master of the best, but I soon discovered that in all of them there were a number of deficiencies, which, at different times, I endeavoured to supply.’ He tells us that he had perused more than forty publications and manuscripts on shorthand writing, and that with none of them was he thoroughly satisfied. ‘At last,’ he adds, ‘I determined to set about forming a complete system of my own, upon more rational principles than any I had hitherto met with.’

Before the publication of his book Taylor had ‘taught this science many years, and taken particular pleasure in the study of it.’ ‘In the course of this practice,’ Taylor proceeds to say, ‘I have instructed some hundreds of gentlemen in the universities of England, Scotland, and Ireland.’ He taught his shorthand at Oxford, Dublin, Dundee, Perth, and Montrose. Probably he was a 