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Rh assigned the temporalities of the vacant see of Carlisle for his support. In 1643 he was offered a seat in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, but declined it publicly in terms which drew upon him the anger of the House of Commons, and an order for the confiscation of his library was averted only by the interposition of Selden. He quitted Oxford in 1645 and went into Wales, where he remained till 1646, when he returned to London, and was in 1647 elected preacher to the Society of Lincoln's Inn, an office which he continued to hold until near his death. During his residence in Wales a hyper-Calvinistic work entitled A Body of Divinity; or the Sum and Substance of the Christian Religion, was published under his name by John Downham; and, although he repudiated the authorship in a letter to the editor, stating that the manuscript from which it was printed was merely a commonplace-book into which he had transcribed the opinions of Cartwright and other English divines, often disapproving of them and finding them dissonant from his own judgment, yet it has been persistently cited ever since as Usher's genuine work, and as lending his authority to positions which he had long abandoned, if he ever maintained them. In 1648 he had a conference with Charles I. in the Isle of Wight, assisting him in the abortive negotiations with parliament on the question of episcopacy. About this time Richelieu offered him a pension. In 1650-54 he published the work which was long accounted his most important production, the Annates Veteris et Novi Testamenti, in which he propounded a now disproved scheme of Biblical chronology, whose dates were inserted by some unknown authority in the margin of reference editions of the Authorized Version. In 1655 Usher published his last work, De Graeca LXX Interpretum Versione Syntagma. He died on the 20th of March 1656, in Lady Peterborough's house at Reigate, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He was long remembered, not only for his great learning but for his modesty and kindly disposition. His daughter sold his library to the state, and in 1661 it was placed in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, of which it still forms a part.

USHER (O. Fr. ussier, uissier, mod. huissier, from Lat. ostiarius, a door-keeper, ostium, doorway, entrance, os, mouth), properly an official or servant who guards the entrance to a building, admits those who have the right of admission and keeps out strangers; such functions as the introduction of those who are admitted, the conducting them to their seats or to the presence of the persons receiving them and the keeping of order and silence are also performed by them. The "ushers" of a law-court are familiar officials of this kind. The name is also applied to various members of the British royal household, in which there are several "gentlemen-ushers." The four principal British orders of knighthood style one of their chief officers "usher"; thus there is a gentleman-usher of the Black Rod, who is also one of the high officials of the House of Lords (see further,, and ,—Orders of Knighthood). A common usage of the word, now obsolescent, is for an undermaster at a school.

USK, THOMAS (d. 1388), the author of The Testament of Love, was born in London. His name was first added to the history of English literature in 1897 by Mr Henry Bradley’s discovery that The Testament of Love, an important prose work hitherto attributed to Chaucer, bore in the initial letters of its chapters a statement of authorship—“Margarete of virtw, have merci on thin Usk.” By the light of this perception, various autobiographical statements became luminous, and there remained no possible doubt that the author was Thomas Usk, who was clerk of the closet to John of Northampton when he was mayor of London from 1381 to 1383. In July 1384 Usk was seized and put in prison, but was released on promise of bringing charges against the mayor. Usk had no wish to be what he called " a stinking martyr," and he freely produced evidence which sent John of Northampton to gaol.

For this he was not forgiven by the duke of Gloucester's party, although he continued to hold confidential posts in London until the close of 1386, when he was appointed sub-sheriff of Middlesex. But he fell with the king, in the triumph of the duke of Gloucester, and on the 3rd of February 1388 Usk, among others, was tried for treason and condemned. He was sentenced " to be drawn, hung and beheaded, and that his head should be set up over Newgate." John of Malvern, in his continuation of Ralph Higden's Polychronicon, gives a horrid description of his execution, which occurred on the 4th of March 1388, in circumstances of rude barbarity; it took thirty blows of a sword to sever Usk's head from his shoulders. Professor Skeat has shown that the date of his book must be about 1387, for in it he reviews the incidents of his career, including the odd facts that, after his first imprisonment in 1384, he challenged any one who " contraried " his “saws”—that is to say, denied his allegations—to fight, but that no one took up his wager of battle. From 1381 to 1383, while Chaucer was comptroller of customs, Usk was collector, and they were doubtless acquainted. In The Testament of Love, the god is made to praise “mine own true servant, the noble philosophical poet in English,” who had composed " a treatise of my servant Troilus." Usk had at one time been a Lollard, but in prison he submitted to the Church and thought he was forgiven. His solitary work is remarkable, and the most elaborate production in original English prose which the end of the 14th century has bequeathed to us. It is, however, excessively tedious, and of its obscurity and dullness a very amusing proof is given by the fact that successive editors—and even Dr Henry Bradley and Professor Skeat—did not discover till too late that the leaves of the original MS. had been shuffled and the body of the treatise misarranged. No MS. of The Testament of Love has been preserved; it was first printed by W. Thynne in his edition of Chaucer, 1532. In 1897 Professor Skeat, with cancelled sheets to cover the unlucky mistake above referred to, issued a revised and annotated text in his Chaucerian and other Pieces.

USK, a river of Wales and England, rising on the borders of Carmarthenshire and Brecknockshire, and flowing to the Bristol Channel with a course of 70 m., and a drainage area of 540 sq. m. The source lies at an elevation of 1700 ft. on the north flank of Carmarthen Van, a summit of the Brecon Beacons; and the course is at first northerly, but soon turns east through a beautiful valley closely beset with lofty hills. The river passes the finely situated town of Brecon, and then turns south-east past Crickhowell and south past Abergavenny. Between these towns it forms a short stretch of the Welsh boundary before entering England (Monmouthshire). The valley now broadens, and the course of the river becomes sinuous as it flows by the ancient towns of Usk and Caerleon. The scenery throughout is most beautiful. Not far from the mouth lies Newport, with its extensive docks, to which the estuary gives access. Except in this part, the Usk is not used for navigation, but the Monmouthshire and Brecon and Abergavenny canals, in part following the valley, carry a small trade up to Brecon. The Usk is noted for its salmon and trout fishing.

USK, a small market town, is beautifully situated on the right bank of the Usk river, 10 m. N.N.E. of Newport. Pop. of urban district (1901), 1476. It unites with Newport and Monmouth to form the Monmouth parliamentary district of boroughs, returning one member. It is of high antiquity, occupying the site of a Roman-British village or fort; and there are picturesque ruins of an ancient castle erected in defence of the Welsh marches, and as such, a scene of frequent strife from Norman times until the days of the warlike Owen Glendower, about 1400. The church of St Mary originally belonged to a Benedictine nunnery of the 12th century.

USKOKS, or. During the early years of the 16th century, the Turkish conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina