Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/455

 been presented to the rectory of Little Cornard, Suffolk, in 1446 (ib.)

On the death of Stoke, Whethamstede was for the second time elected abbot, on 17 Jan. 1451, and accepted the election. The good order and prosperity of the abbey had declined under Stoke, and Whethamstede at once provided for an increase in the number of scholars, for better tuition, and for more frequent preaching. In 1452 he applied for and received letters patent, extending the king's general pardon to himself and the convent. The accounts of the general official, William Wallingford, afterwards abbot, who executed a number of the conventual offices, showed many debts, and it is asserted in the register compiled after Whethamstede's death that the abbot convicted him of gross fraud [see ]. The abbot caused the accounts to be regulated and the pecuniary position of the house to be set right, and was as active generally in the discharge of his duties as during his earlier tenure of office. After the first battle of St. Albans, on 22 May 1455, he obtained leave from the Duke of York to bury Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, and Thomas, lord Clifford. Henry VI spent Easter in 1459 at the abbey, and the abbot at his request provided that his obit should be kept. He did not in that year personally attend parliament, on account of bodily infirmity. On the defeat of the Yorkists at St. Albans on 17 Feb. 1461, the northern army, though it did not enter the abbey, did great damage to the conventual property, and the abbot was forced to retire to Wheathampstead for a short time, others of the convent also temporarily withdrawing. He represented the impoverished state of his house to Edward IV, and on 3 Nov. received a charter enlarging the abbot's temporal jurisdiction. He died at a great age on 20 Jan. 1465, and was buried in the still existing tomb that he had made for himself in the abbey church.

Whethamstede's chief works during his second abbacy were the building of the library and rebuilding of the bakehouse of the abbey. He was learned, energetic, liberal, of high character, and much esteemed. The allegation that he suddenly changed from a violent Lancastrian to a Yorkist (, Middle Ages, iii. 198) seems mistaken. He was probably always inclined to the Yorkist side, as might be expected from his former friendship with Gloucester. Though he was perhaps too much given to litigation, he lived at a time specially marked by litigiousness, and it was his duty to defend the rights of his house. During his first abbacy he wrote ‘Granarium de viris illustribus,’ in four volumes; ‘Palearium Poetarum;’ a Register to the seventh year of his abbacy, with various letters; a book, ‘Super Valerium in Augustinum de Anchona;’ another commentary, ‘Super Polycraticum et super Epistolas Petri Blesensis,’ and a small book with metres and tables. The ‘Cato Glossatus’ and the two books of his own composition which he presented to the Duke of Gloucester were doubtless the same as the ‘Cato Commentatus,’ and two volumes of the ‘Granarium’ which Gloucester presented to the university of Oxford. Damaged copies of three parts of the ‘Granarium,’ with illuminations, are in the British Museum, the first part, Cottonian MS. Nero, C vi.; the second, Cottonian MS. Tib. D. v.; and the fourth, Additional MS. 26764. Leland saw a book of Whethamstede's entitled ‘De situ Terræ Sanctæ,’ and there are also attributed to him books called ‘Propinarium,’ ‘Pabularium Poetarum,’ and ‘Proverbiarium,’ besides others mentioned by Bale and Pits. He was held in high repute as a letter-writer; some of his letters, which are verbose and flowery, are in the ‘Chronicles of St. Albans Abbey’ (see below), and others of little importance are in Cottonian MS. Claudius D i. His Latin verses, which he seems to have composed on all occasions, are mere doggerel.



WHETSTONE, GEORGE (1544?–1587?), author, was related to a wealthy family of Whetstone, which owned in the sixteenth century the manor of Walcot in the parish of Bernack, near Stamford in Lincolnshire (, Athenæ, ii. 437). He seems to have been a native of London and third son of Robert Whetstone, who owned