Robert Warde

, a native of the Dioc. of Durham, was elected Probationer-Fellow of Merton College in 1536, he being then Masters standing or more, and three years after proceeded in Arts. About that time he became a shagling Lecturer in Philosophy before the University in the publick Schools, a profound Disputant in Philosophical matters, and homo semper nimium Metaphysicus, as one (o)(o) Laur. Humphredus in Vita Jo. Juelle: edit. 1573. p. 10 [•] . doth deservedly stile him. He was the chief man that disputed with Bishop Rydley in the Divinity School, an. 1554. as I have elsewhere told (*)(*) In Hist. & Antiq. Vniv. Oxon, lib. 1. p 277. you. And Joh. Fox who hath a full relation (p)(p) In Act & Man. Eccles. sub an. 1554 of the said disputation, saith of this our Author thus. “Mr. Ward amplified so largely his words, and so high he climed into the Heavens with Duns his Ladder, and not with the Scriptures, that it is to be marvelled how he could come down again without falling, &c. ” But what Fox hath ironically said concerning this matter, is fully answered by one (q)(q) Rob. Persons in his [〈◊〉] of ten pu [•] lick [〈◊〉] : Printed 1604. cap. 4. p 222. and cap. 5. p 311. 312. of Wards perswasion. As for the works that this our Author hath written, I never saw any, and therefore cannot give you the titles, only say with our old, and later, Catalogue or Register of Fellows of Merton Coll. that he wrot,

Dialectica & Philosophica quaedam, &c.—Joh. Fo [•] before-mention’d hath published,

His disputation with B. Nich. Rydley in the Divinity-School at Oxon.—Which you may see in the Book of Acts and Mon. of the Church, under the Year 1554. A little before Qu. Elizab. came to the Crown, Mr. Warde (who seems to have been then Bach. of Div.) travelled to Rome, where paying his last debt to nature on the 14. Oct. in Fifteen hundred fifty and eight, 1558 was there buried; but in what Church or Chappel I know not. Whereupon the report of it coming to Oxon his exequies were celebrated (r)(r) Reg. 1. Act. societ. coll. Mert. fol. 32 [•] . a. by the Society of Merton College 17. Novemb. following, according to our accompt. Of the same Family (tho remote) was Will. Warde, alias Walker, alias Slaughter, Son of Mr. Rob. Warde of the County of Cumberland, who having spent 7 years in studying the Arts in Brasnose Coll. travelled into Spayne with one Mr. Dutton a R. Cath. and there became one of his opinion. Afterwards he returned into England to settle his concerns, went beyond Sea again, and upon a Commission received, he returned into his own Country a second time to convert Persons to his profession; but being taken after he had been a Priest 24 years, was imprison’d in Newgate. Soon after being tried for his life, he was executed at Tybourne on Munday 26. July 1641.