Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/64

Urswick (, England under the Tudors, i. 43). In the autumn he was again sent to France to renew the offers of mediation (Materials, ii. 377;, i. 45). In March 1491–2 he was despatched to receive ratification of the treaty of peace with James of Scotland, and on 30 Oct. following once more went as ambassador to France. His mission resulted in the signature of the treaty of Étaples on 3 Nov. On 5 March 1492–3 he was commissioned to invest Alfonso, eldest son of the king of Sicily, with the insignia of the Garter, of which order Urswick had recently been appointed registrar. Two months later he was again sent to negotiate an extension of the truce with Scotland, and in June was made commissioner to arrange border disputes. In April 1496 he was sent to Augsburg on a mission to the king of the Romans (Cal. State Papers, Venetian, i. 698–706;, i. 126 sqq.). He returned towards the end of May, and was not again employed in a diplomatic capacity.

He continued to accumulate ecclesiastical preferments. In 1490 he was appointed canon of Windsor and archdeacon of Wiltshire. On 21 March 1492–3 he was made prebendary of Buttevant in York Cathedral, and archdeacon of Richmond in the same year. In June 1494 he resigned the deanery of York, and on 20 Nov. 1495 was elected dean of Windsor. He refused the bishopric of Norwich vacated in 1498 by the death of James Goldwell, and in 1500 resigned the archdeaconry of Richmond. He was present in that year at the meeting between Henry VII and the Archduke Philip (Harl. MS. 1757, f. 361). On 5 Nov. 1502 he was inducted to the living of Hackney, where he mainly resided during the rest of his life; and before 1505 he became fellow of the collegiate church of Manchester. He sometimes officiated at court ceremonies, served on the commission of sewers for Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire, and in 1513 acted as executor to Margaret Beaufort. During his later years he was a close friend of Erasmus and More. Erasmus is said to have made his acquaintance in 1483; he paid Urswick a visit in 1503, and sent him a translation of Lucian's dialogue, ‘Somnium sive Gallus.’ Urswick on his part gave Erasmus a horse which ‘thrice carried him safely to and from Basle’ (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ii. 3339). When it died, Erasmus hoped ‘to wheedle Urswick out of a new horse by sending him a New Testament’ (ib. ii. 2290, 2323, 3659), an attempt which was not successful.

Urswick died, aged 74, on 24 March 1521–2, and was buried in St. Augustine's Church, Hackney, which he was engaged in rebuilding. Two brass plates were placed over his grave with an inscription recording his eleven embassies. St. Augustine's was demolished in 1798, when the plates on the altar, which Urswick had erected, were removed to the porch of the neighbouring church of St. John. By his will, dated 10 Oct. 1521, and proved 11 April 1522, he made bequests to Cuthbert Tunstall [q. v.] and to the school of Lancaster. As dean of Windsor it was under his direction and that of Sir Reginald Bray [q. v.] that St. George's Chapel was rebuilt. A chapel in the north-west corner is still called the Urswick Chapel, though it was appropriated in 1818 for the cenotaph of the Princess Charlotte, and the stone screen bearing an inscription asking for prayers for Urswick, which is still legible, was removed to the south aisle. Urswick figures among the eminent persons connected with St. George's in the window over the door of the Albert Chapel, and his arms frequently occur with Bray's on the roof of St. George's. He also rebuilt the deanery at Windsor.

[A very detailed account of Urswick's career, with authorities, is given in Urwick's Records of the Family of Urwick or Urswick, 1893, pp. 81–140. See also Lansd. MSS. 978 f. 244, 979 f. 8; Addit. MS. 15673, f. 113; Campbell's Materials for the Reign of Henry VII, Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Henry VII, and Andrea's Historia (Rolls Ser.); Brewer's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; Paston Letters, iii. 468; Cal. State Papers, Venetian and Spanish; Cal. Inq. post mortem, 1898, i. 1120, 1144; Erasmi Epistolæ; Knight's Erasmus; Froude's Life and Letters of Erasmus; Robinson's Hackney, i. 91, ii. 21; Busch's England under the Tudors, pp. 13, 15, 17, 23, 43, 45; Hennessy's Novum Repertorium, 1898, pp. 22, 177, 456; Fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester (Chetham Soc.) new ser. xxi. 27–31.]  URSWICK, THOMAS (d. 1479), judge, was apparently son of Thomas Urswick of Badsworth and Uprawcliff, and was related to Christopher Urswick [q. v.] He was educated in the study of law, but at what inn is not known. On 27 June 1453 he was appointed common serjeant of London, and on 3 Oct. 1455 became recorder. Like most London citizens, he sided with the Yorkists in the wars of the roses, and in July 1460, after the arrival of Warwick and Edward, earl of March (afterwards Edward IV), in London, Urswick was placed on a commission to try Lancastrian partisans at the Guildhall (Rot. Parl. vi. 19). Similarly, when Margaret of Anjou had won the second battle of St. Albans (17 Feb. 1460–