Henry, an English poet, born at Chester about the middle of the fifteenth century. Early displaying a taste for religion and literature, he was received while a boy into the Benedictine monastery of St Werberg in that city; and he was afterwards sent to Gloucester (now Bradshaw Worcester) College, Oxford. After studying there for a time with the novices of his order, he returned to his convent, where, in the latter part of his life, he applied himself chiefly to the study of history. He died in 1513. His poetry in some respects is not inferior to that of any of his contemporaries. His works are 1. De antiquitate et magnificentia Urbis Cestria; 2. Chronicon; 3. The Life of the glorious virgin St Werberg, printed at London, 1521, 4to, in verse, and now extremely rare. The life of St Werberg forms only part of this work, which contains also a description of the kingdom of Mercia, a life of St Etheldreda, a life of St Sexburg, the foundation and history of Chester, and the chronicles of some kings.

John, president of the court which condemned Charles I., was descended of an ancient Lancashire family, but the branch to which he belonged was seated either in Cheshire or Derbyshire. Being appointed speaker or president of the parliament under Cromwell, a guard was assigned him for the safety of his person, together with apartments in Westminster, a sum of L5000 sterling, and considerable territorial domains. But he was not destined long to enjoy the recompense of the judicial service he had rendered; for, according to the pamphlets of the time preserved in the British Museum, he withdrew from parliament, and died in obscurity in 1659. At the Restoration his body, with those of Cromwell and Ireton, was disinterred, suspended on the gallows at Tyburn, and burned. Yet several collectors of anecdotes have circulated an idle story that Bradshaw passed into the colonies (Barbadoes or Jamaica) under a feigned name, and signalized himself in various contests with the native tribes. (Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liv. p. 834.)

William, an eminent English Puritan, born in 1571 at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. His chief claim to notice as an author rests on a small treatise, entitled English Puritanism, published in 1605, which is valuable as a record of the main opinions of the most rigid Puritans of his time. He died in 1618.