Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/419

 called Paduan law. The remembrance of his cruelties long remained fresh in the minds of his fellow-countrymen (Mirror for Magistrates, ii. 199, ed. Haslewood).

Along with his cruelties, Worcester is famous for his scholarship and his interest in learning (on the combination of cruelty with culture among the Italians of the Renaissance see, Renaissance in Italy, i. 413–14; Worcester may perhaps be regarded as an early specimen of the Italianised Englishman who, according to a later proverb, was un diavolo incarnato). He was an accomplished latinist, an eager student, a friend and patron of learned men, and a traveller of cultivated taste. He sailed to Italy probably about 1457 or 1458 with a large company of attendants, landed at Venice, and apparently at once took ship again for Palestine, where he visited Jerusalem and other holy places. Returning to Venice, he went thence to Padua, where he resided for some time studying Latin. There he met with or Phreas [q. v.] and other students and men of learning. He became a friend of Guarino, the most famous teacher in Italy, then residing at the court of Ferrara, and of Lodovico Carbo, who both esteemed him highly, and he seems to have been regarded by the Italian humanists as a kind of Mæcenas. Being anxious when at Florence to see the city thoroughly, he walked about unattended and examined everything carefully. He heard the lectures of John Argyropoulos, who began to teach Greek in Florence in 1456. He visited Rome, where he made an oration before Pius II and the cardinals, and the pope is said to have been moved to tears by his eloquence and the beauty of his latinity. He bought so many books that he was said to have spoiled the libraries of Italy to enrich England, and the famous bookseller Vespasiano, who probably knew him when at Florence, speaks of the largeness of his purchases. Worcester is said to have written ‘Orationes ad Pium II, ad Cardinales, et ad Patavinos,’ though this is perhaps merely a deduction from the facts of his life. Of his letters, four exist in the Lincoln Cathedral library. He translated Cicero's ‘De Amicitia,’ and the ‘Declaration of Nobleness’ by Buonaccorso. These were printed by Caxton in 1481, along with a translation of the ‘De Senectute,’ wrongly ascribed by Leland to Worcester. He is also said to have been the author of Cæsar's ‘Commentaryes newly translated owte of latin in to Englyshe as much as concernyth thys realm of England,’ printed 1530 (Brit. Mus.; ). The ‘ordinances for justes of peace royal’ noted by Warton (iii. 337) are his ‘ordinances for justes and triumphes’ made by him as constable in 8 Edward IV, 1466, to be found in Cottonian MS., Tib. E. viii. f. 126 [258]; they were commanded to be observed in 1562, and are printed in Harington's ‘Nugæ Antiquæ,’ i. l, with a heading of that date. In the same Cottonian MS., f. 117 [149], are ‘Orders for the placing of nobility’ by Tiptoft, also made in 1466. Dibdin erroneously follows Fuller in attributing to Worcester a petition against the lollards; Fuller confuses the earl with his father. Caxton wrote an impassioned lament for and high eulogy of him as an epilogue to the ‘Declamation’ (see also the prologue to the translation of the ‘De Amicitia’); he says that from the earl's death all might learn to die, and as he speaks of him as superior to all the other temporal lords of the kingdom in moral virtue, as well as in science, we may believe that he had some good qualities besides his love of learning; he seems at least to have been faithful to the Yorkist party. He gave books of the value of 500 marks to the university of Oxford, which had not received his gift at his death; but the suggestion that it never obtained the books is mistaken, for Hearne recognised one of them in the university library, a ‘Commentarius Latinus in Juvenalem.’ He is said to have intended to present books to Cambridge also. He founded a fraternity in All Hallows' church, Barking.

Worcester was thrice married: (1) to Cicely, widow of Henry de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, who died on 28 July 1450; (2) to Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Greyndour, by whom he had a son who died in infancy; and (3) to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Hopton, and widow of Sir Roger Corbet of Moreton-Corbet, Shropshire, by whom he had a son Edward. As the earl was not attainted, this Edward succeeded de jure to the earldom at his father's death, being then two years of age. On his death, without issue, on 12 Aug. 1485, this earldom became extinct; his heirs were his three aunts, the sisters of his father [see under ]. There is an effigy of John, earl of Worcester, on a tomb in Ely Cathedral, probably erected by him for himself and his wives; an engraving from it is given in Doyle's ‘Official Baronage.’

[Three Fifteenth-Cent. Chron. pp. 157, 159, 177, 182–3; Gregory's Chron. pp. 221–2; Warkworth's Chron. pp. 5, 9, 13, 38 (all Camden Soc.); Worcester Ann. pp. 476, 492, 495, ed. Hearne; Fabyan's Chron. p. 659, ed. 1811;