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John Of Beverley||1414| John of Beverley (died 1414), a Carmelite of great theological fame, doctor and professor of divinity at Oxford, was born at Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He became a canon of St. John's, Church in that town, and from the few records left of him it api)ears that in 1367 he gave a chaplain and his successor forty acres of land in North Burton and Raventhorpe, and in 1378 alienated by license certain tenements in Yorkshire for the benefit of a chancery priest and his successors. He was trained in the theology of the Carmelite friars; wrote 'Quæstiones in Magistrum Sententiarum '(Master of the Sentences; ''i.e'.', Peter Lombard), Lib. iv., and 'Disputationes Ordinariae', Lib. i., and other works of a like nature which exist in manuscript in the Queen's College Library, Oxford; and being a popular preacher, was specially regarded by Oxford men for the soundness of his theology and the variety of his literary studies. No more is told of him in general history; than that he flourished about 1390, and he is even confounded with, and his works attributed to, Johannes Beverlay, an Augustinian monk, ordained by Oliver Sutton, bishop of Lincoln, in 1294. We think, however, that he is the same person as John of Beverley the Lollard. He certainly lived in the days of this society of itinerant preachers, the followers in England of John Wycliffe, so severely persecuted by Richard II and Henry IV. In addition to denial of transubstantiation and other important doctrines of the then existing church, the Lollards preached against pilgrimages to Canterbury, Walsingham, and Beverley as accursed, foolish, and a spending of goods in waste. And John of Beverley seems to have joined 'certain other Oxford men', and become one of the earliest converts to their views. Shortly after Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, the chief favourer of the movement, had escaped from the Tower, the Lollards were taken at their usual assembly place in St. Giles's Fields, and tried for treason against church and state. In defence some of them stated that they were a persecuted flock, and as their worship in a public place was prohibited, they had simply met together in a thicket in ticket's field (part of St. Giles's Fields) to hear the preaching of John of Beverley the priest. On 12 January 1413-14 sixtv-nine of the prisoners were condemned, and next day thirty-seven of them were drawn to St. Giles's Fields and hanged and burned. On 19 January John of Beverley the priest, and shortly after Sir Rocrer Acton, knight, and others, were drawn and hanged at the same place. [Bale, British Script. Catalogue page 543; Pits. De Anglæ Script. a.d. 1390: Tanner s Bibl. British; Holinshed's Chronicle; Villiers de S. Etienne, i. 797; Rot. Pat. 40 E. III, Inq. P.M. 51 E. III.]

 Beverley, John (1743–1827), esquire bedell of Cambridge University, was a native of Norwich, where his father was a native of Norwich, where his father was in the wine trade, and received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge (BA 1767, MA 1770). He was elected one of the esquire bedells of the university in 1770, and held that appointment until his death. Mr. Gunning, who was one of his colleagues, gives some extraordinary instances of the careless and perfunctory way in which Beverley discharged the duties of his office. Beverley was always in pecuniary difficulties, and in order to extricate himself from them he resorted to a variety of ingenious expedients. For example, he would dispose of musical instruments and choice flowers, of which he had a fine collection, at a very high price, by means of a lottery, and he and his friends used to canvass the members of the university to purchase tickets. He was a great favourite with the Earl of Sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, who appointed him commissioner and comptroller of an office in Greenwich Hospital. He married one of the daughters of Cooper Thornhill, the famous rider from Stilton. In consequence of his long services as required bedell he was allowed to have a deputy in 1821. In an undated manuscript note, Cole, the antiquary, says: 'Beverley was extravagant, and his wife improvident and proud; they have six young children; it is said he has others at Norwich. Lord Sandwich ahout three years ago got him a small place in his office of the admiralty, of about £100 annum, he being a good performer on the violin'. His death occurred in London 25 March 1827.

Besides some poll-books of university elections he published: 1. 'An Account of the different Ceremonies observed in the Senate House of the University of Cambridge throughout the year, together with tables of fees, modes of electing officers, forms of proceeding to degrees, and other articles relating to the customs of the university'. Cambridge 1788, octavo. 2. 'The Trial of William Frend in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for writing and publishing a pamphlet entitled "Peace and Union recommended to the Associated Bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans,"' Cambridge [1793], octavo. 3. 'The Proceedings in the Court of Delegates on the Appeal of William Frend from the Sentence on the Vice-Chancellor's Court', Cambridge [1793], octavo. [Information from Rev. H. R. Luard, D.D.; manuscript Addit 5864, f. 99; Cambridge Chronicle. 30 March 1827; Biography. Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); Catalogue of Printed Books in British Museum; Romilly's Graduati Cantab. 493, 494; Gunning's Reminiscences of Cambridge, i. 144-54; Gentlemen's Magazine li. 532, containing satirical verses on Beverley.]

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