Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/182

 of the Reign of George III’ were re-edited by Mr. G. F. Russell Barker in 1894 (4 vols.). Peter Cunningham's collected edition of Walpole's ‘Letters’ (1857–9, 9 vols.) embodied many separately published volumes of his correspondence with respectively George Montagu (London, 1818, 8vo), William Cole (1818, 4to), Sir Horace Mann (1833, 8vo, and 1843–4, 8vo), with the Misses Berry (1840), with the Countess of Ossory (1848), and with William Mason (1850), besides his ‘Private Correspondence’ (1820, 4 vols.).

 WALPOLE, MICHAEL (1570–1624?), jesuit and controversialist, youngest of the four brothers of [q. v.], was baptised at Docking, Norfolk, on 1 Oct. 1570. When [q. v.] landed in Norfolk in 1588 he made the acquaintance of the Docking household, and young Michael attached himself to the jesuit. When Henry Walpole was taken prisoner at Flushing, Michael went to his assistance and procured his ransom. He entered the Society of Jesus on 7 Sept. 1593. Doña Luisa de Carvajal came to England in 1606, and he appears to have been her confessor or spiritual adviser. In 1610, while in attendance on this lady, he was arrested and thrown into prison; but on the intervention of the Spanish ambassador he was released, though compelled to leave the country. In 1613 he returned to England in company with Gondomar, when Doña Luisa's house was broken into and the lady imprisoned. Walpole very narrowly escaped arrest. When Doña Luisa died in 1614, Walpole was with her, and he accompanied her body on its removal to Spain next year, and died some time after 12 Aug. 1624.

Walpole wrote much. He published: 1. ‘A Treatise on the Subjection of Princes to God and the Church,’ St. Omer, 1608, 4to. 2. ‘Five Books of Philosophical Comfort, with Marginal Notes, translated from the Latin of Boethius,’ London, 1609, 8vo. 3. ‘Admonition to the English Catholics concerning the Edict of King James,’ St. Omer, 1610, 4to. 4. ‘Anti-Christ Extant, against George Downham,’ St. Omer, 1613–14, 2 vols. 4to; 2nd edit. 1632. 5. ‘Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola,’ St. Omer, 1616, 12mo: a translation of Ribadeneyra which was often reprinted.

 WALPOLE, RALPH (d. 1302), bishop of Norwich and afterwards of Ely, was probably a member of the family of the Walpoles of Houghton, which since the early part of the twelfth century had possessed a competent landed estate in the fen country of West Norfolk and Northern Cambridgeshire. The family name comes from the village of Walpole, in the extreme west of Norfolk, a few miles north of Wisbech. Ely, where the family possessed a town house, was another centre of its estates. The future bishop can without much hesitation be identified with Ralph de Walpole, clerk, of Houghton, and son of John de Walpole, who in an undated deed gave a piece of land in Houghton to Thomas of Clenchwardetoun (, Peerage, v. 30, ed. 1779;, Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, i. 274). In that case he was the son of Sir John de Walpole and his wife Lucy. John was alive in 1254, and seems to have been succeeded by his son, Henry de Walpole, who fought with the younger Simon de Montfort against Edward in the Isle of Ely in 1267 (ib. i. 273), and died before 1305.

The younger brother Ralph adopted an ecclesiastical career. He became a doctor of divinity, possibly at Cambridge, where he possessed a messuage, which, on 21 June 1290, he obtained license to alienate in mortmain to Hugh de Balsham's new foundation of Peterhouse (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1281–92, p. 371). He became rector of Somersham, Huntingdonshire, and in 1268 appears as archdeacon of Ely, holding this preferment for at least twenty years. In March 1287 Archbishop Peckham addressed him a letter, ordering him to make personal investigation at Cambridge of certain slanders on Peckham and other bishops alleged to have been 