Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/16

Udall ’ it. The second volume came out in 1549, but in that Udall had no hand.

Edward VI showed Udall much favour. When Gardiner preached before the young king on 29 June 1548, and he was expected to deny the authority of the king to make religious changes during his minority, Udall was directed to report the sermon by ‘a noble personage of this realm’. The ‘noble personage’ was doubtless Protector Somerset. Foxe printed Udall's report of Gardiner's sermon in his ‘Acts and Monuments.’ In 1549 a more responsible task was entrusted to him. He was ordered to reply to the catholic rebels of the west, who had put forward ‘certen artycles of us the comoners of Devonsheir and Cornwall in divers campes by Est and West of Exeter.’ The insurgents demanded the restoration of the mass, of the abbey lands, and of the Six Articles, together with the recall of Cardinal Pole from exile. Udall's answer bears the title ‘An answer to the articles of the comoners of Devonsheir and Cornewall, declaring to the same howe they haue been seduced by evell persons, and howe their consciences may be satysfyed and stayed, concerning the sayd artycles, sette forthe by a countryman of theirs, much tendering the welth, bothe of their bodyes and solles.’ Udall reasoned with great force against the catholic arguments, and defended the royal authority in matters of religion. His tract, which runs to eighty closely written folio pages, is preserved at the British Museum (Royal MS. 18, B. xi.). It was printed for the first time by the Camden Society in ‘Troubles connected with the Prayer Book of 1549,’ which was edited by Nicholas Pocock in 1884.

Further literary work of similar tendency followed. About 1550 he issued an English translation (from the Latin) of Peter Martyr's ‘Discourse or Traictise … concernynge the Sacrament of the Lordes Supper’ [see ]. Edward VI marked his approbation by issuing letters patent securing to Udall exclusive rights in the original Latin version of Peter Martyr's ‘Treatise of the Eucharist,’ as well as in the English translation; and at the same time gave Udall permission ‘to preynt the Bible in Englyshe as well in the large volume for the use of the churches wth in this our Realme and other Dominions as allso in any other convenient volume.’ Of this privilege Udall does not seem to have availed himself. He contributed Latin poems to the two collections of elegies published in 1551, respectively on Henry and Charles Brandon, dukes of Suffolk, and Martin Bucer. In 1552 he translated the ‘Compendiosa totius Anatomie delineatio’ of Thomas Gemini [q. v.], whose copperplate engravings give the work high artistic interest. The book was dedicated to the king.

Despite the circumstances attending Udall's dismissal from Eton, scholastic employment was also found for Udall by the ministers of his royal patron, and he was appointed ‘schoolmaster’ of the young Edward Courtenay, then a prisoner in the Tower (Trevelyan Papers, Camden Soc. ii. 31, 33). At the same time Edward VI bestowed new church preferment on Udall. In November 1551 he was nominated to a prebend at Windsor, but he failed to take up his residence there, and continued to preach elsewhere. He was consequently held in the following year to have forfeited his rights to the emoluments of the prebend. But in September 1552 a royal letter directed the dean and chapter of Windsor to pay Udall the income of the preferment ‘during the time of his absence.’ On 26 March 1553 he was presented to the rectory of Calborne in the Isle of Wight.

The accession of Queen Mary in no way injured his fortunes. She had taken part with him in the translation of Erasmus's paraphrase, and Udall knew how to adjust his sails to the passing breeze. In 1553 he endeavoured to extract from the protestant martyr Thomas Mountain [q. v.], while in prison, a recantation of protestantism (, Narratives of the Reformation, Camden Soc. p. 178). The lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, encouraged Udall's pusillanimity, and gave him the post of schoolmaster in his household, where several boys were brought up under the bishop's superintendence. Gardiner left forty marks to his ‘schoolmaster,’ Udall, in his will, dated 9 Nov. 1555 (Wills from Doctors' Commons, Camden Soc. 43, 44). Udall's repute as a dramatic writer was not exhausted. In 1554 a warrant from Queen Mary directed Udall to prepare ‘dialogues and interludes,’ to be performed in the royal presence; and ordered such dresses and apparel to be delivered to him from the office of the revels as from time to time he might require (Losely MSS. ed. Kempe, p. 63).

At the close of his life Udall again filled the office of master of a great public school. He succeeded Alexander Nowell about 1554 as headmaster of Westminster school, which Henry VIII had established in 1540; and he held that post until the school was absorbed in the monastery of Westminster, which Queen Mary refounded in November 1556. Udall died next month, and was buried in the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 23 Dec. 1556. Entries of the burial in