CHAPTER XL
AN ACCOUNT OF THE DEANS, VICARS-GENERAL, OR CHANCELLORS, ARCHDEACONS, COMMISSARIES, OFFICIALS, AND PREBENDS.
Deans of Norwich
1. William Castleton, the last prior here, was made the first dean, by the foundation charter of King Henry VIII. A. 1538, but he resigned it the next year, having a pension during life settled on him. He lived till about 1548, for in that year 40l. of his gift was paid to the court to clothe poor people with; and John Reve, his executor, promised to deliver a hundred quarters of wheat to the use of the city poor, to be kept and sold to them at six shillings a comb, whenever wheat exceeded that price.
2. John Salisbury, descended from an ancient family of that name in Denbighshire, was first a monk of the monastery of Bury, and having studied some time in both Universities, entered into holy orders, and was soon after chosen prior of the monastery of St. Faith, at Horsham in Norfolk, about 1534; and after his surrender of that priory, was nominated by Bishop Nix, to the King, who appointed him suffragan Bishop of Thetford, and he was consecrated accordingly by Archbishop Cranmer, March 19, 1536.
Dec. 20, 1537, he was collated to the archdeaconry of Anglesey; and the next year, May the 2d, to the prebend of Yarmouth in the church of Norwich.
In 1539, he was installed dean of Norwich, and in 1541, resigned his rectory of Creke, in Norfolk to a son of Sir Roger Townsend's, for whom he held that rectory, reserving a pension to himself for life, out of it; and immediately after, Sir Roger, and Anne his wife, presented him to Cleydon rectory in Suffolk.
In 1546, he was instituted to Lopham; and in 1554, was deprived of his deanery and livings by Queen Mary; but was immediately presented again to Lopham, by Thomas Duke of Norfolk, and instituted again; that nobleman having a great value for him, procured him the rectory or Diss, to which he was instituted the same day, at the presentation of Henry Earl of Sussex, and held them by union.
About nine months after he was installed chancellor of the church of Lincoln,
In 1560, he was restored by Queen Elizabeth to this deanery; and in 1571, was created Bishop of the Isle of Man, and confirmed in it April 7, when he obtained license to hold the deanery in commendam with it, together with his rectories of Diss, and Thorp on the Hill, in Lincoln diocese; and having lived here till Sept. 1573, he died in a good old age.
3. John Christopherson, D. D. a Lancaster man, bred in St. John's college; was first fellow of Pembrook-hall, after that, of his own college, being confessor to Queen Mary, was made master of Trinity college, and dean here in the room of Salisbury; he was installed April 18, 1554, and voided the deanery, at his promotion to the bishoprick of Chichester, in 1557.
He is acknowledged by all, to have been a very learned man; and among other works published by him in the Greek and Latin tongues, he translated several of the works of Eusebius and Philo Judæus out of the Greek into Latin; but being a strict Papist, he was deprived of his bishoprick and mastership by Queen Elizabeth; and Will. Bill, whom Queen Mary had deprived to introduce him, was restored to his mastership; and it is no wonder to find this man ejected, for we are assured, that during the Marian persecution, he came the nearest to bloody Bonner, burning no less than ten, in one fire at Lewes, and seventeen others at sundry times, in divers places.
4. John Boxhall, or Boxall, was born at Bramshoot in Hampshire, and had his grammar learning in W. of Wykeham's school by Winchester, was thence admitted perpetual fellow of New-college in Oxford, in 1542; took his degrees in arts, and was esteemed one of the most subtile disputants in the whole University. Afterwards he entered into holy orders, but did not preach in the reign of Edw. VI. but when Queen Mary came to the crown, he was made archdeacon of Ely, secretary of state, prebendary of Winchester, and warden of Winchester college in 1554: about which time he was appointed one of the preachers at Paul's-cross, in order to revive the Romish religion, which had suffered so great an eclipse in King Edward's days; and in his sermons there demeaned himself with so much zeal and eloquence, that the Queen heaped preferments upon him.