Thomas Key

or Cay, whose name, and the same bearers of armes, tho they have continued for several generations at Woodsome or Wodersome and elsewhere in Yorkshire; yet I cannot say that this our Author was born there, because the statutes of Allsouls Coll. (of which he was Fellow) oblige the society to choose their Members from the Province of Canterbury. His Relations therefore having in his time (and perhaps before) lived in Lincolnshire, I shall appoint that County for his native place, but the house of Learning in Oxon. of which he was originally a student, I cannot assign, unless University Coll. Howsoever it is, sure I am, that he was in 1525 elected Fellow of Alls. Coll being then about 3 years standing in the University, where running through the several Classes of Logick and Philosophy, took the Degrees in Arts, and made so great a proficiency in his studies, that he became an eminent Latinist, Grecian, Poet and Orator, excellent also for all kind of worth, and at length antiquitatum nostratium plane helluo, as one (k)(k) Ric-Stanyhurst in praelat ad Harmon, in Porphir. constitutiones—Edit. 1570. is pleased to stile him. In the Year 1534 he was unanimously chosen Scribe or Registrary of the University, being then esteemed most worthy of that place, because he had a command of his tongue and pen: For in his time, and long before, it was commonly the Registraries office to speech it before, and write Epistles (as the Orator doth now) to, great personages. But as he was excellent in those matters, so to the contrary in the performance of his Registraries place. For whether it was upon a foresight of the utter ruin of the University, which was intended, as he thought, by the Reformers, (for he lived in the changeable times of Religion) or his being besotted with a certain crime, which he could not avoid till old age cured it, he became so careless in committing the acts of congregation and convocation to writing, that divers articles being publickly put up against him by the Masters, he was deprived of that place in 1552, and Will. Standish M. of A. of Magd. Coll. succeeded by virtue of the Kings Letters, sent to the University in Oct. 1543 for the next reversion of that office. In 1559 he was made Prebendary of Stratton in the Church of Sarum, by virtue of the Queens Letters, dated in Dec. the same year, in 1561 he was elected the Head or Master of Univ. Coll. (to which he was afterwards a considerable benefactor) and upon the death of Pet. Vannes, (whom I shall anon mention) which hapned in the beginning of 1563 he became Rector of the rich Church of Tredington in the County and Dioc. of Worcester: All which he kept to his dying day. He hath written.

Assertio antiquitatis Oxoniensis Academiae. Finished on the first of Sept. 1566, as a copie thereof under his own hand in my possession, attesteth. Which book being written within the space of seven days, was by him presented in MS. to Qu. Elizab. at her being entertain’d by the University in the said month of Sept. A copie of which book coming into the hands of Joh. Cay Doctor of Physick of Cambridge, he wrot an answer to it in a book entit. De antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae, and were both by him published (contrary to the knowledge of our Author Cay of Oxon) under the name of Londinensis—Lond. 1568. in oct. and there again under the name of Joh. Cains an. 1574 in qu. Whereupon our Author being unwilling to sit down, and see himself so unworthily dealt withal, wrot a reply soon after the first edition of his Assertio was printed, bearing this title.

Examen judicii Cantabrigiensis cujusdam, qui se Londinensem dicit, nuper de origine utriusque Academiae Lati. Before which is written an Apologie for himself why he wrot his Assertio, and why the said Reply. But this book being never printed, there only went about from hand to hand some MS. Copies of it; one of them Mr. Tho. Allen of Glocester-hall, and another Mr. Miles Windsore of Corp. Ch. Coll. had in their respective libraries. From one of which Copies, I remember formerly I took some notes, being then in other hands, but where either of those Copies are now, in truth I cannot tell. Our Author Th. Key translated from Lat. into English Erasmus his Paraphrase on St. Mark, being that part of the New Test. which he was desired to translate by Qu. Catherine Pare. Also from English into Lat. The Sermons of Dr. Jo. Longland Bishop of Lincolne; from Greek into Lat. Aristotles book De mirabilibus mundi, dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury; Euripides his Tragedies, and the third oration of Isocrates, called Nicocles; with other things which I have not yet seen. At length arriving to the age of Man, he concluded his last day in his Lodgings in Univers. Coll. about the middle of the month of May in Fifteen hundred seventy and two, 1572 and was buried on the 20 of the same month under the North wall of the alley or isle, joyning on the North side of the body of the Church of St. Peter in the East, near to, and within, the East gate of the City of Oxon. Over his grave, tho there was never any Epitaph to celebrate his memory, yet certain noted (l)(l) Joh. Leland in Illustr, & eruditorum in Angl. Virorum Encomiis, &c. Lond. 1589. p. 95. & in Epigram. Job. Parkhursti Lond. 1573. p. 79. & 121. Poets of his time have done it in their respective works, by Encomia’s and Epigrams, to which I refer the curious reader, as they are cited in the margin. As for Pet. Vannes, whom I have before-mention’d, he was the Son of Steph. de Vannes of the City of Luca in Italy, was brought into England by Andrew Ammonius his Mothers brother, and made Secretary of the Latin tongue to K. Hen. 8. who sent him to Rome with Steph. Gardiner and others, to sollicite the Pope for a divorce from Qu. Catherine. In the Year 1527. March 5. he was made Prebendary of South Grantham in the Church of Sarum, upon the resignation of one Will. Burbanke, and in 1529. Dec. 4. Preb. of Bedwyn in the same Church, on the resignation of Thom. Winter. In 1534 he was made Archdeacon of Worcester in the place of Dr. Will. Cleybroke deceased, and the same year Feb. 25. was admitted Preb. of Bool in the Church of York. In Feb. 1539, he, by virtue of the Kings Letters, became Dean of Salisbury, but whether in the place of Reymund Pade who obtained that Deanery in Januar. 1522. I cannot tell, nor do I know yet to the contrary, but that he was deprived of that Dignity in the beginning of the Reign of K. Edw. 6. because that one Tho. Cole is said (m)(m) In A brief discourse of the troubles began at Frankford, &c. printed 1575. qu. to be Dean of Salisbury in that Kings time. Howsoever it is, sure I am that Vannes was Dean in the time of Qu. Mary, and beginning of Qu. Elizabeth, and that several years before, viz. in 1543. March 12. he was made Preb. of Shipton (Shipton under wood) in the said Ch. of Sarum, on the death of Dr. Joh. London, that in 1545 he occurs one of the Canons of the Coll. of K. Hen. 8. at Oxon, and soon after Rector of Tredington in the Dioc. of Worcester. On the sixth day of May 1563 he resigned his Deanery of Salisbury, and in few days after died either in London or Westminster, leaving then all his wealth to his heir called Benedict Hudson alias Vannes. This Peter Vannes being well known to Joh. Leland, he is therefore by him (n)(n) In Encomiis, &c. ut supra, p. 27. numbred among the famous Men living in the Reign of K. Hen. 8. He was also much in favour with Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he wrot divers letters while he continued in Rome an. 1528 giving him an account of the affairs of that place, and how matters went relating to the divorce between K. H. 8. and Qu. Catherine.