Hoveden, Roger De

, an English historian, who flourished in the reign of Henry II. was born in Yorkshire, most probably in the town of that name, was of a good family, and lived beyond the year 1204, but the exact periods of his birth and death are not known. He is said to have had some situation in the family of Henry II. and to have been employed by that monarch in confidential services, such as visiting monasteries. He was by profession a lawyer, but, like other lawyers of that time, in the church, and also a professor of theology at Oxford. After the death of Henry, he applied himself diligently to the writing of history, ancl composed annals, which he commenced at the year 731, the period where Bede left off, and continued to the third year of king John, 1202. These annals were first published by Savile among the Historic! Anglici, in 1595, and reprinted at Francfort in 1601, folio, in two books. Leland says of him, " If we consider his diligence, his knowledge of antiquity, and his religious strictness of veracity, he may be considered as having surpassed, not only the rude historians of the preceding ages, but even what could have been expected of himself. If to that fidelity, which is the first quality of a historian, he had joined a little more elegance of Latin style, he might have. |

stood the first among the authors of that class." Vossius says that he wrote also a history of the Northumbrian kings, and a life of Thomas a Becket. Edward the Third caused a diligent search to be made for the works of Hoveden when he was endeavouring to ascertain his title to the crown of Scotland. Savile bears the same testimony to his fidelity that we have seen given by Leland. ¹