vent obtained the king's license to elect a successor. Nicholas broke into the monastery, took forcible possession of the license, and himself appointed an abbot. He maintained his hold of his diocese till his death in March 1304-5 (SWEETMAN, Cal. Doc. 1302-1307, No. 387). book, and there is reason to doubt whether the writer of the marginal note had seen the original. The expression in the note, 'mare sugenum' (which surrounded the magnetic rock), may be merely an echo of Cnoyen's een zugende zee.' [Arundel MSS. 347 and 207 contain the C1[Sweetman's Calendar of Documents, 1252-lendar, parts of which are also found in several 1307, passim; Ware's Works (Harris), 1764. i. 198; Richey's Short Hist. of the Irish People (Kane), 1887, pp. 178 seq.; Cotton's Fasti, iii. 199; Brady's Episcopal Succession; Gams's Series Episcoporum.] A. G. NICHOLAS OF OCCAм (A. 1330), Franciscan. [See OCCAM.] NICHOLAS (1316?-1386), successively prior and abbot of Westminster Abbey. [See LITLINGTON or LITTLINGTON.] NICHOLAS OF LYNNE (f. 1386), Carmelite, was lecturer in theology to his order at Oxford. In 1386, at the request of John of Gaunt, he composed a calendar from 1387 to 1462, arranged for the latitude and longitude of Oxford, with an elaborate apparatus of astronomical tables, which were used by Chaucer in his Treatise on the Astrolabe.' Hakluyt states that Nicholas made a voyage to the lands near the North Pole in 1360. His authorities, Gerardus Mercator and John Dee [q. v.], who make no reference to Nicholas by name, derive their information from James Cnoyen of Bois-le-Duc, a Dutch explorer of uncertain date. Cnoyen's book, written 'Belgica lingua,' is lost. Mercator made extracts from it for his own use, and sent them in 1577 to John Dee. These extracts are preserved (Brit. Mus. MS. Cotton, Vitell. C. vii. ff. 264-9). From them it appears that Cnoven's knowledge was obtained from the narrative of a priest who had an astrolabe.' The narrative was presented to the king of Norway in 1364. According to this priest's account, an Oxford Franciscan, who was a good astronomer, made a voyage in 1360 through all the northern regions, and described all the wonders of those islands in a book which he gave to the king of England, and inscribed in Latin "Inventio Fortunate." No evidence has been discovered to connect, as Hakluyt does, the unnamed Franciscan of Oxford with the Carmelite Nicholas. Dee (ib.) suggests that he may have been the Minorite Hugo of Ireland, a traveller who flourished and wrote about 1360 (see BALE, Script., and WADDING, Script.) The 'Inventio' has not been found. The earliest allusion to it is in the margin of a map by John Ruysch, which appeared at Rome in the Ptolemy of 1508. Nothing is said about the authorship of the other manuscripts. Chaucer's Astrolabe, ed. Skeat, p. 3; Hakluyt's Voyages, i. 134-5; Mercator's Atlas, ed. 1606, p. 44; B. F. De Costa's Inventio Fortunata, New York, 1881.] A. G. L. or NI NICHOLAS OF HEREFORD, CHOLAS HERFORD (A. 1390), lollard, was Hereford was prior of Evesham for forty probably a native of Hereford. A Nicholas years, and died in 1393 (Vita Ricardi, p. 124), but there is no particular likelihood of any relationship. Hereford was an Oxford student and fellow of Queen's College, where he appears as bursar from 30 Sept. 1374 to 29 Sept. 1375 (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 515). To this circumstance he no doubt owed his intimacy with John Wiclif. He may be the Nicholas of Hereford who was chancellor of Hereford on 20 Feb. 1377, but had vacated that post before 1381 (LE NEVE, Fasti Eccl. Angl. ii. 491). Hereford is stated to have been implicated by the confession of John Ball (d. 1381) [q. v.] in July 1381, when he is described, probably in error, as a master of arts (Fasc. Ziz. p. 274). He had graduated as doctor of divinity by the following spring, and in the letter of the Oxford friars to John, duke of Lancaster, on 18 Feb. 1382, is mentioned as their chief enemy (ib. pp. 294, 296). Throughout Lent of this year Hereford was constantly preaching in support of Wiclif, and against the friars at St. Mary's Church, having for his chief opponent Peter Stokes, the Carmelite. The chancellor, Robert Rigge, refused to take action against Hereford, and finally appointed him to preach the sermon at St. Frides wide's on Ascension day, 15 May, which, delivered in English, proved the climax in the events of the year. In the earthquake council' held at Blackfriars, London, by William Courtenay [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, on 21 May, the doctrines of Wiclif were condemned, and on 30 May the archbishop wrote to the chancellor expressing his surprise at the favour shown to Hereford. On 12 June, at a second meeting of the council, the chancellor received a peremptory mandate suspending Wiclif, Hereford, Philip Repington [q. v.], John Aston [q. v.], and Lawrence Bedeman [q. v.] from all public functions. The chancellor, under pressure, published the mandate at Oxford on Sunday, 15 June. Next day Hereford and Repington appealed to John of Lancaster for his protection, without success. At a third council, held on 18 June, they were called on to answer plainly to the conclusions formulated against them, and, failing to do so, were remanded for a final answer two days later. The answers then handed in were adjudged unsatisfactory, and they were ordered to appear again at Otford on 27 June. The matter was then once more postponed till 1 July, when the accused, failing to appear, were condemned and excommunicated. Knighton (col. 2657) says that Hereford escaped death only by the help of John of Lancaster and the subtlety of his own arguments. In the poem on the council, in Wright's 'Political Songs' (i. 253-6, Rolls Ser.), Hereford's answer on 20 June is said to have confounded his opponents, one of the chief of whom was John Wellys, monk of Ramsey. Hereford at once appealed to the pope, and set out for Rome. In the meantime a royal letter was issued on 13 July, ordering the destruction of any of his writings that might be found at Oxford. In answer to another letter from the archbishop, the chancellor replied on 25 July that search had been made at Oxford, but that Hereford could not be found. On reaching Rome, Hereford propounded his conclusions, which had been condemned at Blackfriars, before the pope and cardinals. They were once more condemned, and Hereford only escaped death through the friendship of Pope Urban VI for the English. He was ordered to be confined for life, and, despite the remonstrances of some of the nobles, was kept a prisoner till, when the pope on his way to Naples was besieged in a certain castle, he obtained his release through a popular rising (KNIGHTON, Col. 2657). This would appear to refer to the siege of Urban at Nocera, by Charles of Durazzo, in June 1385. After his escape Hereford made his way back to England; according to Knighton he was imprisoned for some years by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but at length made his submission. On 15 Jan. 1386 the archbishop made a request that a writ might be issued for Hereford's capture. But on 10 Aug. 1387 Hereford was still at large, for on that date the Bishop of Worcester inhibited him and other lollards from preaching in his diocese. Walsingham (Historia Anglicana, ii. 159) describes Hereford at the time as the chief leader of the lollards after Wiclif's death (see also Vita Ricardi, p.83). Between 30 March 1388 and 16 Dec. 1389 numerous commissions were issued by the king ordering the writings of Wiclif and of various of his followers, including Hereford, to be seized (FORSHALL and MADDEN, i. xxiv; KNIGHTON, col. 2709). Hereford's English captivity is probably to be referred to these years. According to Foxe, Thomas Netter [q. v.], in his 'De Sacramentis,' says that Hereford and John Purvey [q. v.] were grievously tormented in the castle of Saltwood, Kent, and at length recanted at Paul's Cross, Thomas Arundel being then archbishop (Acts and Monuments, iii. 285). This would put the recantation at least as late as 1396, but more probably it was in 1391, for on 12 Dec. of the latter year Hereford received the royal protection. On 8 Oct. 1393 he was present at the examination of Walter Brit or Brute [q. v.] for heresy at Hereford; a letter of reproach for his apostasy, which was addressed to him on this occasion, is given by Foxe (ib. iii. 188-9). Hereford is mentioned in 1401 as a stout opponent of his old associates (cf. WYLIE, Hist. Henry IV, i. 301). At the examination of William Thorpe [q. v.], in 1407, Hereford was referred to as a great clerk, who had seen his error, and is alleged to have declared that since he forsook lollard opinions he had more favour and delight to hold against them than ever he had to hold with them (Acts and Monuments, iii. 279). On 12 Dec. 1391 Hereford was appointed chancellor of Hereford Cathedral, which post he still held on 10 Feb. 1394, but resigned it before 1399. On 20 March 1397 he became treasurer of Hereford, and held the office till 1417,when he resigned both the treasurership and the prebend of Pratum Minus, which he had received some time after 1410. He is probably also the ex-lollard who was made chancellor of St. Paul's on 1 July 1395, and held that post till the next year (LE NEVE, Fasti Eccl. Angl. i. 489, 491, 524, ii. 359; NEWCOURT, Repertorium, i. 113). In his old age, probably in 1417, Hereford became a Carthusian monk at St. Anne's, Coventry, and lived there till his death, the date of which is not recorded (Bodleian MS. 117, f. 32 b). The notarial record of Hereford's sermon of 15 May 1382, made at the time in Latin, is preserved in Bodleian MS. 240 (see Academy, 3 June 1882; Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 296). The answers made by Hereford and Repington on 20 June to the conclusions previously condemned by the council at Blackfriars are printed in Wilkins's 'Concilia,' iii. 161, and Fasciculi Zizaniorum,' pp. 319-25. Knighton (col. 2655) gives what purports to be Hereford's confession in English made in June 1382. Its tenor on the doctrine of the corporeal presence, when compared with Hereford's later career, shows that this ascription is impossible. Lewis and Vaughan [Fasciculi Zizaniorum, in Rolls Ser.; Knighton's Chronicle, ap. Twys len's Scriptores Decem; Bale's Centuria, vi. 92; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 546; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ed. Hardy; Foxe's Acts and Monuments. iii. 24-17. 187-9, Oxford, i. 475, 492–3. 502, 504, 510; Wilkins's Cone. Mag. Brit. iii. 157-68, 201, 204; Forshall and Madden's Wycliffite Versions of the Holy Bible, vol. i. Pref. pp. xvii-xviii, xxviii; Lewis's Life of Wyclif. pp. 256-62; Lechler's John Wielif and his English Precursors, i. 341–8, ii. 246–65, transl. Lorimer; other authorities quoted. The writer has also to thank Mr. R. L. Poole for some notes.] C. L. K. both regarded it as spurious; Lechler, while assumed that up to that date Hereford had accepting it as a genuine document, considers not actually published anything; this circumthat it belongs to a later date-perhaps it may stance, and the strict search that was made be Hereford's recantation at Paul's Cross, but after his writings, especially in 1388, would it is also possible that Knighton may have explain sufficiently the disappearance of copied a genuine confession made by one of Hereford's minor works. the lollards in 1382 and accidentally inserted | Hereford's name. Hereford's most important literary work, and the only such work of importance which has survived, was his share in the translation of the Bible. Wiclif would appear to have entrusted the transla-279-85, 809, ed. 1855; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. tion of the Old Testament to Hereford. The original manuscript of this translation is preserved in Bodleian MS. 959 (No. 3093 in ¦ Bernard's Catalogus MSS. Angliæ'). Both in this manuscript and in the copy contained in Douce MS. 369 in the Bodleian Library, the translation stops short in the book of Baruch at ch. iii. verse 20, and in the latter manuscript, in a hand of slightly later date, are added the words, 'explicit translacion Nicholay Herford.' It would, therefore, seem to be extremely probable that Hereford, previously to June 1382, had proceeded thus far with the work of translation, which subsequent events prevented him from completing. That portion of the work thus ascribed to Hereford is excessively literal, which 'makes the version very often stiff and awkward, forced and obscure.'. In the later revision of the translation, which was commenced by Wiclif, and completed by John Purvey in 1388, Hereford may have possibly taken part, though his long absence from England makes it improbable that his share was a very extensive one. The part of the original version ascribed to Hereford was first completely printed in Forshall and Madden's Wycliffite Versions of the Bible' in 1850; the 'Song of Songs' was edited by Adam Clarke [q. v.] in his Commentary on the Bible' (FORSHALL and MADDEN, vol. i. pp. xvii-xviii, xxviii, 1; LECHLER-LORIMER, i. 342-5). 6 6 Besides the 'Responsiones' and confession of 1382, Bale ascribes to Hereford the following works, none of which seem to have survived: 1.Determinationes Scholastica.' 2. 'Wiclevianæ Doctrinæ Censura.' 3. 'De Apostasia fratrum a Christo.' 4. Adversum Petrum Stokes.' 5. Sermones quadragesimales.' (The two latter would appear to be Hereford's determinations and sermons in the spring of 1382.) 6. Conciones per Annum.' It is noticeable that Stokes, writing in 1382, makes it a ground of complaint against Hereford that, ut miser fugiens, nunquam voluit librum vel quaternum communicare alteri doctori' (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 296). From this it may perhaps be NICHOLAS OF FAKENHAM (A. 1400), Franciscan, may have been a native of Fakenham, Norfolk, or one of a family of that name; several Fakenhams were employed in the service of Richard II (e.g. Pat. Roll, 19 Ric. II. pt. i. m. 25). Nicholas enjoyed the favour and patronage of the king. In 1395 he was D.D. of Oxford, and provincial minister of his order. On 5 Nov. of that year he 'determined' at Oxford, probably at his inception, on the papal schism, by the king's command. In this lecture he advocated the punishment of the schismatical cardinals as the first measure in restoring unity. He was absolved from the provincialate about 1402, probably at the general chapter at Assisi. In 1405 he was appointed commissioner by the protector of the order, Cardinal-bishop of Sabina, to examine into the charges against John Zouch, then provincial minister, whose arbitrary conduct had produced a great and scandalous schism' among the English Minorites. The commissioners deposed Zouch, called a chapter at Oxford (3 May 1405), and elected a successor. Zouch was reappointed by the general chapter, at the instance of the protector, and confirmed by the pope; but the commissioners refused to obey him, and seem to have been generally supported by the friars. Bale, referring to a register of the Minorites,' says that Nicholas died in 1407. He was buried at Colchester. . His 'Determinatio' in 1395, with other pieces on the schism by the same writer, are preserved in Harl. MS. 3768. [Eulogium Historiarum, vol. iii.; Monumenta Franciscana, vol.i.; Wadding's Annales Minorum, vol. ix.; Bodl. MS. Seld. supra, p. 64; The Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.)] A. G. L. marriage, which Cranmer translated into English, and published under the title, 'The Determinations of the most famous and mooste excellent Universities of Italy and Fraunce,' &c., London, 1531. Nicholas de Burgo must be distinguished from a German Dominican friar, Nicholas de Scombergt, who is frequently mentioned in the State Papers.' The Dominican Nicholas came to England in 1517, was employed by the pope, Wolsey, Henry VIII, and other princes, and hoped to be made cardinal. He was in England in 1526, and left for Italy in 1532 or before. [Boase's Register of the University of Oxford; Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII, vols. iv-ix. and xii.; Wood's Annals and Fasti; the Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.)] A. G. L. NICHOLAS, ABRAHAM (1692-1744?), was son of Abraham Nicholas, who wrote 'The Young Accomptant's Debitor and Creditor: or an Introduction to Merchants' Accounts, after the Italian Manner' (1711; 2nd edit. 1713), and kept a school, according to his prospectus, 'in Cusheon-Court, near Austin Friars, Broad Street,' where youths were boarded and given a sound commercial education. Another Abraham Nicholas (d. 1692), probably father of the last-named, was the writer of Thoographia, or a New Art of Shorthand,' 1692. This was edited by Thomas Slater, who states that the author had not completed his work at the time of his death. He was a schoolmaster near St. Mary Magdalen's in Southwark. NICHOLAS DE BURGO (A. 15171537), divinity lecturer at Oxford, was a Franciscan friar and native of Florence. After studying for ten years, chiefly at Paris, where he became B.D., he began to lecture at Oxford in 1517. In February 1523 he was incorporated B.D., and supplicated for D.D. in January 1524. He was released from payment of the usual composition to the university, on the grounds of his ignorance of English, his former services as lecturer, and his poverty, and incepted in June or July. He lectured, and occasionally preached, at Oxford during the next few years, and in 1528 won the favour of the court by advocating the royal divorce. Payments of money were made to him by Wolsey or the king in November 1528, July 1529, and February 1530, and he was naturalised in January 1530. He became very unpopular at Oxford, was pelted with stones in the streets, and is said to have caused thirty women of the town to be locked up in Bocardo. He is probably the friar Nicolas, a learned man and the king's faithful favorer,' who was employed in negotiating with the university of Bologna on the king's matter' in 1530. In December 1531 Nicholas disposed of his stuff at Oxford,' and asked permission to go to Italy for his health. This was refused, as he was too deep in the king's secrets. Wolsey had already appointed him public reader in divinity at Cardinal College; in 1530 his salary was 538. 4d., besides commons. This was the lowest salary of the canons of the first rank, and the salary of the private lectors of the Abraham Nicholas the third was a private faculty of arts in Wolsey's statutes, the salary schoolmaster, first at the sign of the Hand of the public professor or reader of divinity and Pen in Broad Street, London, and afterbeing 401. a year (Statutes of the Oxford wards at Clapham, where he established a Colleges). In 1532 Henry VIII reappointed boarding school. He was favourably known Nicholas reader in divinity. Nicholas was as a specialist in writing. George Bickham, also reader in divinity at Magdalen College the engraver of copybooks, says, in a letter about this time, and held a benefice of the to John Bowles, print seller at Mercers' Hall, annual value of 25l. In January 1533 he that he never saw any pieces that were wrote to Cromwell complaining that though wrote with greater command of hand than he had performed his duties as reader, and had the originals' of one of the copy books of delivered public lectures also, he had received Nicholas (MASSEY). About 1722 Nicholas no remuneration, nor were the profits of his left England, but it is uncertain to what benefice paid. In June he received 67. 13s. 4d. country he went. Massey says: 'I am infrom Cromwell. In 1534 he was still at Ox-formed [he went] to Virginia, but in what ford, and acted as vice-chancellor. In 1535 employ I have not been informed; that I he returned to Italy. In October he wrote to remember only that he died about the year the king from Florence asking leave to retain 1744.' his 'college place' at Oxford and his benefice. In the same year he resigned the lectureship at Magdalen. In July 1537 he wrote to the king, repeating his previous request; he was prevented from coming to England through illness, but hoped to come next month. Nicholas was joint-author with Stokesley and Edward Fox of a book on the king's He published three copybooks: (1) In 1715 A Small Copy-Book (mentioned, without name, by Massey), with fifteen plates engraved by George Bickham; (2) in 1719 'The Penman's Assistant and Youth's Instructor, containing Examples of round, small, and large Hands, in Letters, Words, and Sentences;' (3) 'The Compleat Writing Master,' containing thirty-one long folio plates of useful and ornamental examples of penmanship'in all the hands.' There is an elaborately ornamented portrait of the author, by George Bickham, as frontispiece. The work is dedicated to his successful pupil, John Page, esq. It contains one piece of writing by his brother, James Nicholas, who succeeded him at Clapham, and supported 'the school' with reputation.' Besides these three books Abraham Nicholas wrote two copies for George Bickham's Penman's Companion,' 1722. [Massey's Origin and Progress of Letters, 1763, pt. ii. pp. 109, 110, 111; Westby Gibson's Bibliography of Shorthand, p. 141; Brit. Mus. Cat., where, however, the three Nicholases are erroneously confused.] F. W-N. NICHOLAS, DAVID (1705 ?-1769), Welsh ballad-writer, born about 1705 at Llangynwyd, Glamorganshire, was son of Robert Nicholas and Ann Rees his wife, who, according to the register of Llangynwyd Church, were married 12 Feb. 1699. David was baptised 1 July 1705. In 'Cambrian Biography' (p. 82), followed by Taliesin ab Iolo in his History of Glyn Neath' (p. 29), his birthplace is erroneously stated to be Ystradyfodwg, and the inscription on his tombstone wrongly gives the date of his birth as 1693. He became a schoolmaster, and kept day-schools at Llangynwyd, Ystradyfodwg, and Glyncorrwg successively, but spent the latter years of his life at Aberpergwm, in the Vale of Neath, as the 'bardd teulu' or family bard of that house, being probably the last in Wales to hold such a position. He acquired a great local reputation for his surgical skill in the treatment of both man and beast; but he was, like many of the Welsh poets of his day, addicted to drink. Nicholas was admitted as member of the Glamorgan Gorsedd' or congress of bards in 1730, and a letter written by him in 1754 to Edward Evans (1716-1798), and printed in Taliesin (ed. by Ab Ithel), i. 94, is considered a masterly exposition of the rules of Welsh prosody. He is said to have translated portions of Homer; but these, if executed, are lost (TAL. AB IOLO, op. cit). His reputation mainly rests on his ballads, which are among the most popular in Welsh. The best known of them are ' Y Deryn Pur' and Fanny Blodau'r Ffair' (see a translation, Fanny Blooming Fair' in DR. JONES's History of Wales, pp. 260-2), which, with others, are preserved in the collection of Welsh national airs by Jane Williams of Aberpergwm. English translations of some of them by Mrs. Pendril Llewelyn of Llangynwyd (1811–1874) have been published in local papers and in Archæologia Cambrensis.' Nicholas died in 1769 (wrongly given as 1777 in Cambrian Biography), and was buried at Aberpergwm. [Cadrawd's History of Llangynwyd, pp. 74, 186-8; Taliesin ab lolo's Hist. of Glyn Neath (in Welsh), pp. 21, 22, 24, 29; Dr. Jones's Hist. of Wales, p. 260; Cambrian Biography; Miss Williams's Collection of Welsh Airs.] D. LL. T. NICHOLAS, SIR EDWARD (15931669), secretary of state to Charles I and Charles II, descended of the Nicholas family of Winterbourne Earls, Wiltshire, was the eldest son of John Nicholas who died at Winterbourne Earls in 1644, and of Susan his wife, a daughter of William Hunton, of East Knoyle (see Pedigree in HOARE, Wiltshire, v. 96). He was born at his father's house on Tuesday, 4 April 1593 (Winterbourne Earls Register; HOARE, ubi supra), and was bred' there until he was about ten years old, when he was sent with his brother Matthew (see below) to Salisbury grammar school. Two years later they went to school in Sir Lawrence Hyde's house in Salisbury, their father then dwelling in the deanery, and subsequently, when Edward was about fourteen, to Winchester, where we had commons; but after a severe illness, six months later, he went home for nine months (1608), and then stayed at the house of his uncle, Richard Hunton, under a schoolmaster called Richard Badcock. On 25 Oct. 1611 he matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, and in 1612 entered the Middle Temple. After one and a half year's residence at the university he returned to the Middle Temple, studied there till he was 'above twenty-one,' and then in 1615 was sent into France, where he remained till midsummer 1616. On his return he was made secretary to Sir John Dacombe, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Dacombe died in 1617, and Nicholas returned to the Middle Temple till November or December 1618, when he became secretary to Edward, lord Zouch, lord warden, chancellor, and admiral of the Cinque ports. In 1622 he resided in the Barbican (Egerton MS. 2523, No. 17), and he represented Winchelsea in the parliaments of 1620-1 and 1623-4 (Return of Members, 1878, lxii. 455, 461). Nicholas continued with Zouch until the latter resigned his office of lord warden to George, duke of Buckingham, who, upon Lord Zouch's recommendation, made Nicholas his secretary for the business of the Cinque ports (9 Dec. 1624). Buckingham at once bade Nicholas inform himself of the business of the office of lord high admiral of England, and did 'always make me wait on his grace when the |