gation. He died apparently in November 1666. A son was a member of the same church.
He wrote: 1. ‘Good Tydings for Sinners,’ London, 1649, 4to. 2. ‘No Power but of God,’ London, 1652, 2nd edit. 3. ‘Englands Remonstrance, or a Word in the Ear to the scattered discontented Members of the late Parliament … likewise a Word to the present Assembly at Westminster and the Councell of State,’ 1653. 4. ‘The Way to Heaven discovered,’ Bristol, 1653 (in favour of the doctrine of grace and the true love of God). 5. ‘The Church of Christ in Bristol recovering her Vail out of the Hands of Them that have smitten and wounded Her, and taken it away,’ London, 1657; the first portion is signed by Purnell and five other members of the church (p. 24). 6. ‘A little Cabinet richly stored with all Sorts of Heavenly Varieties,’ London [19 Aug.], 1657. 7. ‘The Way Step by Step to sound and saving Conversion,’ London, 8 Aug. 1659.
[Broadmead Records, Hanserd Knollys Soc.; Fuller's Rise and Progress of Dissent in Bristol, p. 43; Hollester's Skirts of the Whore discovered, 1656, and The Cry of Blood, 1656; Firmin's Serious Question.]
PURNELL, THOMAS (1834–1889), author, son of Robert Purnell, was born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, in 1834. He matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1852 (Reg.), but afterwards came to London and embarked in journalism. In 1862 he was, on the recommendation of Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, appointed assistant-secretary and librarian of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and he retained the post until 1866. In 1870–1 he contributed to the Athenæum, under the signature ‘Q.,’ a series of dramatic criticisms which attracted notice by their incisive style and the severity of their censures. Charles Reade and Tom Taylor published replies. Of genially bohemian temperament, Purnell was popular in literary society, and founded a little club known as the ‘Decemviri,’ of which Messrs. A. C. Swinburne, Whistler, R. E. Francillon, and Joseph Knight were among the members. He came to know Mazzini, to whom he introduced Swinburne and others. In 1871 he edited Lamb's ‘Correspondence and Works,’ and organised the Charles Lamb centenary dinner. He died at Lloyd Square, Pentonville, London, where his sister kept house for him, on 17 Dec. 1889, after a long illness.
Purnell was the author of: 1. ‘Literature and its Professors,’ London, 1867, post 8vo. 2. ‘Dramatists of the Present Day’ (reprinted from the ‘Athenæum’), by Q., London, 1871, post 8vo. 3. ‘To London and elsewhere,’ London, 1881, 12mo. 4. ‘The Lady Drusilla: a Psychological Romance,’ London, 1886, post 8vo. 5. ‘Dust and Diamonds: Essays,’ London, 1888, post 8vo.
He also edited Dr. John Herd's ‘Historia Quatuor Regum Angliæ’ for the Roxburghe Club, 1868, 4to.
[Archæological Journal, 1862–6; Athenæum, 21 Dec. 1889; Globe, 21 Dec. 1889; private information.]
PURSGLOVE, ROBERT, otherwise Silvester (1500?–1579), bishop suffragan of Hull, born about 1500, is said to have been the son of Adam Pursglove of Tideswell, Derbyshire. His mother was a Bradshawe, probably of the family of Bradshawes of the Peak, to which the regicide belonged. By a maternal uncle, William Bradshawe, the boy was sent to St. Paul's School, London: presumably that founded by Dean Colet in 1509, and not the cathedral or choir school. He would thus be one of the earliest pupils of William Lily, the first head-master. After remaining at St. Paul's for nine years, he spent a short time in the neighbouring priory of St. Mary Overy, and then entered the newly founded college of Corpus Christi at Oxford. He resided fourteen years at Oxford, probably until 1532 or 1533. Joining the great Augustinian priory of Guisborough, or Gisborne, in Cleveland, Yorkshire, he rapidly rose to be its twenty-fourth (and last) prior as early, apparently, as 1534. In the following year the act, suggested by Cranmer, for the appointment of bishops suffragan with English titles was passed; and in 1538 Richard Langrigge and Pursglove were presented by Archbishop Lee of York to Henry VIII, who chose the latter to be bishop suffragan of Hull. The patent is dated 23 Dec. 1538 (Lansdowne MS. 980, f. 127), and Pursglove was consecrated on 29 Dec. (Stubbs, Registrum). On 1 Oct. in the same year he had been collated to the prebend of Langtoft in the cathedral church of York. This stall he exchanged for Wystowe in the same church on 2 May 1541.
In 1540 Pursglove surrendered to the king the great house at Guisborough of which he was prior. It was said that he had kept great state there, being served only by gentlemen born (Cotton MS., quoted in Grainge, Castles and Abbeys of Yorkshire, p. 307). He received as pension 166l. 13s. 4d., a sum representing about 2,000l. of our money. He is also said to have persuaded other heads of religious houses to surrender. In 1544 (26 June) he was made provost of Jesus College, founded at Rotherham by
