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Law: Scales of Justice woodcut

John Taylor  (d. 1534)

JOHN TAYLOR (d. 1534), Master of the Rolls, was the eldest of three sons born at one birth in a humble cottage at Barton in the parish of Tatenhill, Staffordshire. Wood says that the father was a tailor, and that the children were shown as a curiosity to Henry VII, who directed that care should be taken of them, and undertook the expense of their education.1 It is, however, probable that Taylor was born some years before 1485, when Henry VII came to the throne.

He graduated doctor of civil and canon law at some foreign university, being incorporated at Cambridge in 1520 and at Oxford in 1522.2 In 1503, being then rector of Bishops Hatfield, he was ordained sub-deacon. In August 1504 he was sent with John Yonge (d. 1516), afterwards Master of the Rolls, to negotiate a commercial treaty with Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and in or about the same year he became rector of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. On 3 Jan. 1508-9 he was admitted to the prebend of Eccleshall in Lichfield Cathedral.

In Henry VIII's reign Taylor's employments increased. He occurs as King's Clerk and Chaplain in the first year of the reign, and on 29 Oct. 1509 was appointed Clerk of the Parliaments, with a salary of £40;3 on 18 Nov. following he was made a Master in Chancery. In the parliament which met on 21 Jan. 1509-10 he was a receiver of petitions from England, Ireland, and Wales. On 25 Nov. 1510 he was presented by Henry VIII to the church of All Saints the More, London, and on 3 April 1511 to the rectory of Coldingham in Lincoln diocese.

In June 1513 Taylor accompanied the king on his campaign in France, and his minute diary of events extending from 25 June to 21 Oct., with corrections in Taylor's hand, is extant in Cotton. MS. Cleopatra, C. v. 64. He was probably also the author of the king's speech which was delivered on 4 March 1513-14 at the dissolution of parliament.4 In the following June he was prolocutor of convocation, and a speech he delivered in that capacity is preserved in Cotton. MS. Vitellius, B. ii.

On 18 April 1515 Taylor was sent to meet the Venetian ambassador Giustiniani and conduct him to London. He replied to the address of the envoys on their presentation to the king. In the same year he was installed archdeacon of Derby, and was prolocutor of the convocation that met in December, and was rendered memorable by Standish's case.5 On 9 March 1515-16 Taylor delivered a speech in answer to the Spanish envoys.6 On 24 Dec. following he became archdeacon of Buckinghamshire, and on 16 March 1517-18 he was presented to a prebend in St. Stephen's, Westminster. From 1517 onwards he frequently acted as deputy to the master of the rolls.

In 1520 Taylor accompanied Henry VIII as his chaplain to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and he was present at the subsequent meeting between Henry and Charles V. He was again a receiver of petitions in the parliament that met on 15 April 1523, but two days later he resigned the clerkship of the parliaments to (Sir) Brian Tuke. In 1526 Taylor was sent ambassador to Francis I, nominally to congratulate him on his release from captivity, but really to induce him to violate the treaty he had just concluded with Charles V. 7

In the autumn Bishop John Clerk succeeded him as ambassador, and on 26 June 1527 Taylor was rewarded for his services by being made Master of the Rolls. In the same year he was sent to invest Francis I with the order of the Garter.8 He was also named one of the commissioners to try the validity of Henry VIII's marriage with Catherine of Arragon. In 1531 he was again sent ambassador to France, in succession to Sir Francis Bryan. He returned in 1533, and in that year was spoken of as a likely candidate for the next vacant bishopric. On 6 Oct. 1534 he resigned the mastership of the Rolls, which was bestowed on Cromwell, and he died before the end of the year.9 Taylor erected a chapel on the site of the cottage in which he was born, and on the walls is an inscription to his memory.



1. Anthony à Wood, Fasti Oxonienses, i. 62.
2. Cooper, Athenæ Cantabrigensis. i. 50; Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 124. 3. £40 in 1509 was roughly equivalent in purchasing power to £28,000 in 2010.
Source: Measuring Worth.
4. Extant in Harl. MS. 6464.
5. Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ii. 1312 et seq.
6. Extant in Cotton. MS. Vespasian C. i. 98.
7. For details of this mission see Letters and Papers, vol. iv., which contains over two hundred references to Taylor; some of his correspondence is extant in Cotton. MS. Caligula D. ix. 219-32; four letters are printed in Ellis's Original Letters, II. i. 333-43; see also State Papers of Henry VIII, vols. i. vi. and vii.
8. Rymer, Foedera, xiv. 175.
9. cf. Newcourt, i. 249.



Source:

Pollard, A. F. "John Taylor."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol LV. Sidney Lee, Ed.
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1898. 429-430.




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This page was created on May 8, 2012. Last updated March 6, 2023.







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Edward II
Isabella of France, Queen of England
Piers Gaveston
Thomas of Brotherton, E. of Norfolk
Edmund of Woodstock, E. of Kent
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Archbishop Thomas Arundel
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Sir Henry Percy, "Harry Hotspur"
Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester
Owen Glendower
The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403
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Thomas Fitzalan, 5. Earl of Arundel
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Charles VII, King of France
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The Battle of Castillon, 1453



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The Battle of Edgecote, 1469
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The Battle of Barnet, 1471
The Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471
The Treaty of Pecquigny, 1475
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Henry VI
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Anthony Woodville, 2. Earl Rivers
Jane Shore
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Jack Cade's Rebellion, 1450


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Francis Talbot, 5. E. Shrewsbury
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     6th Earl of Northumberland
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Henry Neville, 5. E. Westmorland
William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester
Sir Francis Bryan
Sir Nicholas Carew
John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford
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Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral
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Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
Henry Pole, Lord Montague
Sir Geoffrey Pole
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Sir Richard Southwell
Thomas Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre
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Henry Norris
Lady Jane Grey
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Sir William Petre
Sir John Cheke
Walter Haddon, L.L.D
Sir Peter Carew
Sir John Mason
Nicholas Wotton
John Taylor
Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Younger

Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio
Cardinal Reginald Pole
Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester
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Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London
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Thomas Linacre
William Grocyn
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Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester
Edward Fox, Bishop of Hereford

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Pico della Mirandola
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Martin Bucer
Richard Pace
Christopher Saint-German
Thomas Tallis
Elizabeth Barton, the Nun of Kent
Hans Holbein, the Younger
The Sweating Sickness

Dissolution of the Monasteries
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
Robert Aske
Anne Askew
Lord Thomas Darcy
Sir Robert Constable

Oath of Supremacy
The Act of Supremacy, 1534
The First Act of Succession, 1534
The Third Act of Succession, 1544
The Ten Articles, 1536
The Six Articles, 1539
The Second Statute of Repeal, 1555
The Act of Supremacy, 1559
Articles Touching Preachers, 1583

Queen Elizabeth I
William Cecil, Lord Burghley
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Nicholas Bacon
Sir Thomas Bromley

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick
Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon
Sir Thomas Egerton, Viscount Brackley
Sir Francis Knollys
Katherine "Kat" Ashley
Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester
George Talbot, 6. E. of Shrewsbury
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury
Gilbert Talbot, 7. E. of Shrewsbury
Sir Henry Sidney
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Archbishop Matthew Parker
Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Penelope Devereux, Lady Rich
Sir Christopher Hatton
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Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland
Thomas Radcliffe, 3. Earl of Sussex
Henry Radcliffe, 4. Earl of Sussex
Robert Radcliffe, 5. Earl of Sussex
William Parr, Marquis of Northampton
Henry Wriothesley, 2. Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3. Southampton
Charles Neville, 6. E. Westmorland
Thomas Percy, 7. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 8. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 9. E. Nothumberland
William Herbert, 1. Earl of Pembroke
Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Henry Howard, 1. Earl of Northampton
Thomas Howard, 1. Earl of Suffolk
Henry Hastings, 3. E. of Huntingdon
Edward Manners, 3rd Earl of Rutland
Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland
Francis Manners, 6th Earl of Rutland
Henry FitzAlan, 12. Earl of Arundel
Thomas, Earl Arundell of Wardour
Edward Somerset, E. of Worcester
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Sir Ralph Sadler
Sir Amyas Paulet
Gilbert Gifford
Anthony Browne, Viscount Montague
François, Duke of Alençon & Anjou

Mary, Queen of Scots
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley
James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell
Anthony Babington and the Babington Plot
John Knox

Philip II of Spain
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Sir Francis Drake
Sir John Hawkins

William Camden
Archbishop Whitgift
Martin Marprelate Controversy
John Penry (Martin Marprelate)
Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury
John Dee, Alchemist

Philip Henslowe
Edward Alleyn
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Assize
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The Stuarts

King James I of England
Anne of Denmark
Henry, Prince of Wales
The Gunpowder Plot, 1605
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset
Arabella Stuart, Lady Lennox

William Alabaster
Bishop Hall
Bishop Thomas Morton
Archbishop William Laud
John Selden
Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford
Henry Lawes

King Charles I
Queen Henrietta Maria

Long Parliament
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Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford
John Digby, Earl of Bristol
George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax
Robert Devereux, 3rd E. of Essex
Robert Sidney, 2. E. of Leicester
Algernon Percy, E. of Northumberland
Henry Montagu, Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2. Earl of Manchester

The Restoration

King Charles II
King James II
Test Acts

Greenwich Palace
Hatfield House
Richmond Palace
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Woodstock Manor

The Cinque Ports
Mermaid Tavern
Malmsey Wine
Great Fire of London, 1666
Merchant Taylors' School
Westminster School
The Sanctuary at Westminster
"Sanctuary"


Images:

Chart of the English Succession from William I through Henry VII

Medieval English Drama

London c1480, MS Royal 16
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
London in late 16th century
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's View of London, 1616
Larger Visscher's View in Sections
c. 1690. View of London Churches, after the Great Fire
The Yard of the Tabard Inn from Thornbury, Old and New London




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