Robert Basset of Heanton-Punchardon, Devonshire; Jane married Thomas Poyntz of Hertfordshire; and Anne, William Williams of Herringstone, Dorset. His widow, in 1620, endowed a fellowship and two scholarships at Balliol College, Oxford, out of lands at Hambledon and Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire.
[Boase's Registrum Coll. Exon. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), pp. 66, 370; Foss's Judges of England; Prince's Worthies; Pole's Collections for Devon; Dugdale's Origines, pp. 48, 225; State Trials, i. 1167, 1251, 1315, 1333; App. 4th Rep. Public Records, 272–96; Walter Yonge's Diary, p. 8; Green's Domestic State Papers, 1591–1603; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Strype's Works, Index; Official Returns of Members of Parliament.]
PERYN, WILLIAM (d. 1558), Dominican, was probably connected with the Perins of Shropshire, though his name does not occur in the visitation of that county of 1623. He early became a Dominican, and was educated at the house of that order in Oxford. He thence went to London, where he was a vigorous opponent of protestant opinions. For some time he was chaplain of Sir John Port [q. v.] On the declaration of royal supremacy in 1534 he went abroad, but took advantage of the catholic reaction to return in 1543, when he supplicated for the degree of B.D. at Oxford. On the accession of Edward VI he is said to have recanted on 19 June 1547 in the church of St. Mary Undershaft, but soon left England (Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer, p. 50). He returned in 1553, when he was made prior of the Dominican house of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, the first of Mary's religious establishments. On 8 Feb. 1558 he preached at St. Paul's Cross, and died in the same year, being buried in St. Bartholomew's on 22 Aug. (Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. ii. 116).
Peryn was author of:
- ‘Thre Godlye … Sermons of the Sacrament of the Aulter,’ London [1545?], 8vo (Brit. Mus.). Dibdin describes an edition dated 1546, a copy of which belonged to Herbert. Tanner mentions another edition of 1548. It is dedicated to Edmund [Bonner], bishop of London.
- ‘Spiritual Exercyses and Goostly Meditacions, and a neare waye to come to perfection and lyfe contemplatyve,’ London, 1557, 8vo (Brit. Mus.); another edit., Caen, sm. 8vo, 1598 (Hazlitt).
- ‘De frequenter celebranda Missa,’ which does not seem to be extant (Tanner).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 248, Fasti, i. 119; Foster's Alumni, 1500–1714; Strype's Eccl. Mem. III. i. 471, 501, ii. 2, 116; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 528; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 593; Quétif's Scriptt. Ord. Prædicat. ed. Echard, ii. 157 b; Simler's Bibl. Gesneriana; Pits, p. 571; Ames's Typogr. Antiq., ed. Dibdin, iv. 230; Hazlitt's Collections, 3rd ser. Suppl. p. 80; Stow's Annals, p. 594; Foxe's Acts and Mon. vii. 598; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, iii. 39; Bigsby's Repton, p. 157; works in Brit. Mus. Libr.]
PESHALL or PECHELL, Sir JOHN (1718–1778), bart., historical writer, born at Hawn, Worcestershire, on 27 Jan. 1718, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Peshall (1694–1759) of Eccleshall, Staffordshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of Samuel Sanders of Ombersley, Worcestershire. The family of Peshall was of very ancient origin. One of the early forms of the name was Passelewe, and three members of the family who flourished in the thirteenth century are separately noticed. Sir John took holy orders, and in 1771 was preferred to the rectory of Stoke Bliss in Herefordshire. He resided a great deal in Oxford, where he died on 9 Nov. 1778. He was buried at Hawn. Peshall married, on 12 July 1753, Mary, daughter and coheir of James Allen, vicar of Thaxted in Essex, by whom he left issue.
Peshall wrote ‘The History of the University of Oxford to the Death of William the Conqueror,’ Oxford, 1772, 8vo. This is a slight performance, though it attempts to trace the origin of the university to druidical times, and describes Alfred as merely ‘refreshing the life of the institution’ (p. 20). The authorities on which the book is founded are treated in the chapter on ‘The Mythical Origin of Oxford’ in Mr. Parker's ‘Early History of Oxford’ (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 1885. He also edited from the manuscript in the Bodleian, with additions of his own, Anthony a Wood's ‘Antient and Present state of the City of Oxford,’ 1773, 4to.
[Wotton's Baronetage, i. 122; Gent. Mag. 1778, ii. 164; pedigree of family among Ashmole MSS. in Bodleian Library; Duncumb's Herefordshire, ii. 164; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
PESTELL, THOMAS (1584?–1659?), divine, was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, whence he graduated B.A. in 1605 and M.A. in 1609. He became vicar of Packington, Leicestershire, in 1613, and a year or two later chaplain to Robert Devereux, third earl of Essex [q. v.] He gained a reputation as a preacher, and published a sermon, ‘The Good Conscience,’ in 1615, with a dedication to Sir Philip Stanhope of Shelford, Nottinghamshire. Two other sermons, entitled ‘The Car[e]les Calamitie’ (1615) and ‘The Poor Man's Appeale’ (1623), were licensed for the press; and a fourth, ‘God's Visita-
