Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/63

Rh was a misreading of ‘Undecimilla,’ the name of one of Ursula's companions; Leibnitz held that ‘Ursula et Ximillia’ was the correct expression, and Max Francis, the last elector of Cologne, ordered the clergy of his diocese to erase the ‘eleven thousand’ from their service-books. In the present century F. W. Rettberg conjectured that XI. M. V., meaning ‘eleven martyred virgins,’ was misread ‘eleven thousand virgins.’ Most of these theories are conveniently collected in Gieseler's Kirchengeschichte, II., ii. 454–5. Parallel to the rationalistic tendency elaborate apologies for the whole legend were produced under the influence of the counter-reformation. In 1594 Fleien devoted a volume of his Regesta Martyrum to the history of Ursula and her companions. Still more elaborate was the Vita et Martyrium Sanctæ Ursulæ et Sociarum, published by the jesuit Hermann Crombach at Cologne in 1647. The modern investigation begins with Die Sage von der heiligen Ursula und den elftausend Jungfrauen (Hanover, 1854) of Oscar Schade, who explains Ursula as a christianised representative of the heathen goddess Freya or Nehalennia, who in Thuringia was actually called Hörsel, and reduces her ultimately to a nature myth; he is on firmer ground when he points out the curious parallelisms between the legend of Ursula and that of St. Géréon and the Theban legion, also localised at Cologne. Two replies to Schade have been published respectively by the Bollandist, De Buck, in the Acta Sanctorum (Oct. ix. pp. 73–303, Brussels, 1858), and by J. H. Kessel in his St. Ursula und ihre Gesellschaft (Cologne, 1863). The general disposition of modern champions of the legend is to abandon Elizabeth of Schönau and Hermann, and uphold the historic basis of the Sermo in Natali and the Regnante Domino. Baring Gould's Lives of the Saints, Oct. ii. pp. 535–56, gives a useful summary in English.]  URSWICK, CHRISTOPHER (1448–1522), diplomatist and dean of Windsor, son of John Urswick, was born at Furness in 1448. His father and mother were respectively lay brother and sister of Furness Abbey. He was educated probably at Cambridge, and graduated LL.D. there or at some foreign university. Newcourt's statement, followed by Raines in ‘The Fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester,’ that Urswick was recorder of London before 1483, is obviously a confusion with Christopher's relation, Sir Thomas Urswick [q. v.] About 1482 Christopher came under the notice of Margaret Beaufort [q. v.], who was then married to her third husband, Thomas Stanley, first earl of Derby [q. v.] Possibly it was through the Stanleys that Urswick became attached to Margaret, who made him her chaplain and confessor, and appointed him rector of Puttenham, Hertfordshire. In 1483 Urswick was initiated into the secret schemes of Margaret and John (afterwards cardinal) Morton [q. v.], in favour of Margaret's son Henry, earl of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII), who was then in Brittany. The chief object was the negotiation of a marriage between Henry and Elizabeth of York. Urswick is said to have made several journeys between England and Flanders in this capacity during 1484, and before the end of the year he was sent by Morton to warn Henry against the machinations of Pierre Landois, the Duke of Brittany's chief minister, which were instigated by Richard III. Urswick was appointed Henry's chaplain and confessor, and was one of the few attendants who accompanied Henry in his secret flight from Vannes to the court of the French king, narrowly escaping capture by Landois's agents on the borders of Brittany.

Urswick landed with Henry at Milford Haven on 7 Aug. 1485, and accompanied him to Shrewsbury, and thence to Bosworth (cf., Richard III, act iv. scene 5). He was liberally rewarded for his services; on 21 Sept. he was granted a prebend in St. Stephen's, Westminster; on the 23rd he became a notary in chancery; on 25 Nov. he was appointed master of King's Hall, Cambridge (resigning the rectory of Puttenham on the 26th); on 20 Feb. 1485–6 he was given the prebend of Chiswick in St. Paul's Cathedral; on 9 March 1486–7 he was presented to the rectory of All Hallows, London, and on 18 April following to that of Chaddesley, near Kidderminster, which he resigned on 11 Oct. 1488 (, Materials, ii. 130, 137). In April 1488 he relinquished the mastership of King's Hall, and on 22 May following was elected dean of York, receiving in addition the living of Bradwell-juxta-Mare on 14 Nov.

Meanwhile Urswick had been employed on various missions of importance. On 4 Feb. 1485–6 he received letters of recommendation on being appointed envoy to the pope (ib. i. 275, 360; Letters and Papers of Henry VII, ii. 118). He had returned before the following November, when he was sent to quiet some discontent in Lancashire (Materials, ii. 99). In March 1487–8 he was sent on the important embassy to Ferdinand and Isabella which negotiated the marriage between Prince Arthur and Catherine of Arragon (Cal. State Papers, England and Spain, i. 3 sqq.; Materials, ii. 273). In May following Henry VII sent him to France to offer his negotiation between France and Brittany. The offer was refused, and Edward lord Woodville's attack on France placed Urswick in some personal danger