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 the hard work which it involved to his colleague. Notwithstanding the addition of the deanery of St. Patrick's, he was not long in discovering that between his nominal and actual salary there was a wide difference. Early in 1568 he persuaded Elizabeth to make him an additional yearly grant of 100l., and in 1570 she conferred on him the deanery of Wells in commendam. His duties as lord justice prevented him attending as closely as he desired to his court, and in August 1568 he requested that John Ball, M.A., student of the civil law of Christ Church, Oxford, might be sent over to assist him (Cal. State Papers, Irel. Eliz. i. 384). His request appears to have been complied with (Index, Cal. Fiants, Eliz.) Nevertheless he established a capital reputation as chancellor, proving himself, according to Hooker (Chronicle, vi. 336), ‘a man so bent to the execution of justice, and so severe therein, that he by no means would be seduced or averted from the same, and so much good in the end ensued from his upright, diligent, and dutiful service, as that the whole realm found themselves most happy and blessed to have him serve among them.’ Perhaps Hooker was biassed by the favourable judgment pronounced by Weston in reference to the claim of Sir Peter Carew [q. v.] to the barony of Idrone (Cal. State Papers, Irel. i. 397). But there is no doubt that as a warm advocate of the establishment of a university, the building of schools, and the enforcement of residence on the part of the clergy as the best means of preserving peace, Weston had the true interest of his adopted country at heart. Nor did it require the sarcastic reference of Loftus to ‘dissembling papists’ and ‘cold or carnal protestants’ to convince him of the impropriety of his own position as a layman in possession of ecclesiastical livings. Even before his appointment to the deanery of Wells he had expressed his doubts to Burghley as to taking the fees of the deanery of St. Patrick's and yet neglecting to serve therein (ib. i. 420). Shortly after his arrival in Ireland he had fallen a martyr to gout, and, both causes co-operating, he begged to be recalled. But, though not again included in the commission for government during the absence of the lord deputy, he was too serviceable to be dispensed with. The addition of the deanery of Wells appears hardly to have improved his position, for on 19 Aug. 1571 Fitzwilliam informed Burghley that he had been compelled to break up his house through very want (ib. i. 455). His illness increasing and his conscience refusing to let him any longer enjoy the fruits of his ecclesiastical livings, he entreated Burghley on 17 June 1572 to obtain permission for him to resign them and to return to England. Though greatly oppressed, he still struggled to perform the duties of his office. In the following April he was reported to be extremely ill, and on 20 May 1573 he died. He was buried in St. Patrick's, Dublin, beneath the altar, ‘leaving behind him an excellent character for uprightness, judgment, learning, courtesy, and piety’, Fasti Eccles. ii. 97). ‘A notable and singular man,’ says Hooker, ‘by profession a lawyer, but in life a divine.’

Weston married Alice, eldest daughter of Richard Jennings or Jenyns of Barre, near Lichfield, by whom he had a son John, D.C.L. and treasurer of the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford, where, dying in 1632, aged 80, he was buried in the north wing; and two daughters—Alice, who married first Hugh Brady, bishop of Meath, and secondly Sir Geoffrey Fenton [q. v.], by whom she had a son William and a daughter Catherine, who became the wife of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork [q. v.]; and Ethelreda. In the monument erected by his grandson, the Earl of Cork, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, the effigy of Dean Weston, in a recumbent position, arrayed in his robes of state, is placed under an arch which occupies the upper part, with an inscription recording his services and virtues (, St. Patrick's, pp. 167–71, and Appendix, p. liv).

[O'Flanagan's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, i. 258–62; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 386; Coote's Sketches of English Civilians, p. 42; Smyth's Law Officers of Ireland, pp. 23–5; Lascelles's Liber Munerum, I. ii. 14; Strype's Works (general index); Simms's Bibliotheca Staffordiensis; and authorities quoted.]  WESTON, STEPHEN (1665–1742), bishop of Exeter, said by tradition among his descendants to have been nearly related to Richard Weston, first earl of Portland [q. v.], the lord treasurer, was born at Farnborough, Berkshire, on 25 Dec. 1665. He was educated at Eton, being seventeenth boy on an indenture made at the election in 1679, and proceeded to King's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted scholar on 18 May 1683. He graduated B.A. in 1686–7, M.A. 1690, and became a fellow of his college. In 1698–9 he gave to the college the twelve folio volumes of Grævius, which are called ‘Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum.’ On 20 Dec. 1692 he was admitted student at Gray's Inn.

Weston was an assistant master at Eton from about 1690, and from 1693, when he took