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S/LIB/9/26
The Will of Christopher Urswick, d. 1522
Complete transcription running
to 12 pages
Synopsis
CHRISTOPHER URSWICK (1448-1522), English
diplomatist, was born at Furness in Lancashire and was probably educated at
Cambridge. He became chaplain to Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, and
was employed by her to forward the schemes for securing the English throne for
her son, Henry of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. He crossed from Harfleur to
Wales with Henry in August 1485, and was present at the battle of Bosworth;
then followed for him a series of ecclesiastical preferments, the most
important of which was to the deanery of York. He was sent on several weighty
embassies, including one to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to arrange the
marriage between Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, and another to France
in 1492, when he signed the treaty of Etaples. In 1495 he became dean of
Windsor, later Rector of Hackney, and
he died on the 24th of March 1522. Urswick was very friendly with Erasmus and
with Sir Thomas More. He did some building at Windsor, and one of the chapels
in St George's chapel there is still called the Urswick chapel. Urswick's
kinsman, Sir Thomas Urswick, was a Yorkist partisan, who was recorder of London
and chief baron of the exchequer.
He requests burial in the chancel of the church of
Hackney. He gives 20s to the Priory at
Hatfield Peverel for a “dirige and a masse”, and likewise to the Abbot and
Convent at Beeleigh. To the Black Friars of Chelmsford he gives 40s.
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