Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/48

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NOTES AND QUERIES. 1 12 S.IL JULY 15,1916.

Wood, Anthony Wood's youngest brother; and on Feb. 1,' 1643, Phifip Herbert, fourth Earl of Pembroke and Chancellor of the University, came to lodge at his house (v. A. Wood's ' Life and Times,' O.H.S., 1891, i. 86). The ' D.N.B.' does not mention his marriage, but his eldest son (Deuteronomy xxi. 17) was, probably, the John Bainb ridge, s. John, " doctoris," who matriculated from St..Alban Hall and took his B.A. degree on Feb. 18, 1627/8, aged 16 ; M.A. June 3, 1630 ; and was, possibly, Vicar of Ashburn- ham, Sussex, in 1632.

John Greaves (1602-52), mathematician and traveller (' D.N.B.,' xxiii. 38), Fellow of Merton, was Gresham Professor of Geometry in London, 1630, and succeeded Bainb ridge as Savilian Professor of Astronomy, but was ejected by Parliament from his chair and fellowship in 1648. His younger brother, Edward Greax r es, M.D., Fellow of All Souls and Linacre Reader of Physic, is said to have been created a baronet by Charles I.

James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh ('D.N.B.,' Iviii. 64), removed in 1642 with Parliamentary sanction to Oxford, occupying the house of John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter College for the last thirty years (who had just been made Bishop of Worcester by the King), and remained in the University until March 5, 1644-5, when he accompanied Prince Charles to Bristol. It was at Ussher's instance that Bainbridge wrote the treatise ' Canicularia,' published at Oxford by Greaves in 1648.

There was an apothecary at Oxford called Philip Alport, whom Anthony Wood patronized when in need of a " vomitt " ; and this person appears to have dwelt on the south side of High Street, between the present Grove and Oriel Streets, opposite St. Mary's Church ; to have married in September, 1658, Millicent Astrey of Little Milton, Oxon, in St. John the Baptist Church (Merton Chapel) ; and to have been buried, according to the St. Mary's Register, on June 14, 1665. The Philip Alport " Serv. Doctris. Bambrig.," privilegiatus May 28, 1641, aged 34, if not identical, was probably a relation (v. Wood's ' City of Oxford,' 1899, i. 138 n., and iii. 247 ; Wood's ' Life,' i. 220).

Thomas Savile, first Viscount Savile of Castlebar, in the peerage of Ireland, second Baron Savile of Pontefract, and first Earl of Sussex, in the peerage of England (' D.N.B.,' 1. 374), is that sinister figure whom Clarendon described as a man

" of an ambitious and restless nature, of parts and wit enough, but in his disposition and inclination

so false that he could never be believed or depended upon A bold talker, and applic- able to any undertaking, good, bad, or indif- ferent. "

The ' D.N.B.' gives his dates as 1590 ?-1658 ? but if he was actually 50 in 1646-7, as stated above, he must have been born in 1596-7. He had been seized by the Earl of Newcastle and confined in Newark Castle for six months, but on May 13, 1643, was, on the King's command, transferred to Oxford in order that Charles might in person examine the accusations against him. Savile's de- fence was drawn up with such skill that Charles, ever prone to confide in worse men. than himself, sent him a sealed pardon, and Newcastle publicly apologized for having arrested him. Savile remained in Oxford, and resumed his place at the Council and. his duties as Treasurer of the King's House- hold. At this time the noble Chapter House of Christ Church, sometime the Chapter House of St. Frideswide's Priory, served for the King's Council Chamber. Savile seems continually to have urged the necessity of making peace ; and on May 25, 1644, he was created Earl of Sussex. On Jan. 11,. 1644/5, he was once more imprisoned, this time at Oxford ; and Digby, on the royal behalf, impeached him of high treason. But the House of Lords urging Savile's privilege as a peer, no further steps were taken ; and, about the middle of March, he was released on condition that he removed to France. Whereupon he fled to London and the Parliament.

It was not until over a century and a. quarter after this time that the University could boast of a permanent house of Astronomy. Originally the top room in the Tower of the Five Orders of (what is now called) the Old Schools, with the roof above it, was the observatory of the Savilian. Professor of Astronomy, such as it was in the earliest days of telescopes. Edmund Halley kept a 24-ft. telescope in his rooms, when he was an undergraduate of Queen's College, about 1676, and with it observed a sunspot. In 1769 Prof. Thomas Hornsby tried to observe the transit of Venus from his primitive premises on the Schools' Tower r and others used the tower of New College (which together with the Cloisters, &c., had been used by Charles I. as his magazine) and other prominent buildings for the same purpose. So difficult was the observation, that Dr. Hornsby seized the opportunity to represent the inconvenience to the Trustees of the great benefactor, Dr. John Radcliffe, with the happy result that the Trustees built