THORNE, WILLIAM (fl. 1397), historian, was a monk of St. Augustine's, Canterbury. On 19 April 1387 he was sent as proctor to sue out the papal confirmation for the election of a new abbot. Detained for eight days at Orwell, he did not land till 5 May. He reached Lucca on 11 June, and then had to follow the pope from Lucca to Perugia and Rome for more than a year. He gives a detailed account of the procrastinations, dishonesty, and corruption of the papal court, with a table of charges incurred by the monastery during the vacancy. He failed to secure the confirmation, and the abbot had to come in person. While in Italy Thorne recovered for his monastery the possession of the rectory of Littleborne, Kent, the patronage of which had passed to the monastery of St. Mary de Monte Mirteto of the order of Flora in the diocese of Velletri, where only two monks resided. He concluded his business in January 1390, and started home on the 20th. On his arrival he hurried with all speed to meet the king at Langley on 5 April. His history of the abbots of St. Augustine's, extending from the foundation to 1397, is a work of considerable importance. The first part to 1228 was largely taken from the work of Thomas Sprott [q. v.] It is extant in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. G. vii. 8 and Cotton. MS. Titus A. ix., and was printed by Twysden in his ‘Decem Scriptores,’ 1652.
[Twysden's Decem Scriptores, pp. 1758–2202; Hardy's Descr. Cat. of Materials; Tanner's Bibl. s.v. ‘Thornæus.’]
THORNE, WILLIAM (1568?–1630), orientalist, born at Semley, Wiltshire, in 1568 or 1569, entered Winchester College in 1582. Proceeding to New College, Oxford, he matriculated on 15 April 1586, and was elected a fellow in the year following. He graduated B.A. on 12 April 1589, M.A. on 18 Jan. 1592-3, B.D. on 16 July 1600, and D.D. on 8 July 1602. On 12 March 1596-7 he was licensed to preach, and from 27 July 1598 until 1604 he filled the office of regius professor of Hebrew. On 30 Dec. 1601 he was installed dean of Chichester, and in the same year received the rectory of Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, resigning his fellowship in 1602. In 1606 he was appointed vicar of Amport, Hampshire; in 1607 a canon of Chichester and rector of Birdham, Sussex. In 1616 he became rector of North Marden, Sussex, and in 1619 of Warblington, Hampshire. He died on 13 Feb. 1629-30, and was buried in Chichester Cathedral.
Thorne was a distinguished hebraist and oriental scholar, and was held in esteem on the continent as well as in England. John Drusius dedicated to him 'his' 'Opuscula quae ad Grammaticam spectant' (1609), and Charles Fitzgeffrey [q. v.] devotes an epigram to him in his 'Affaniae sive Epigrammatum libri tres' (1601).
Thorne was the author of: 1. 'Willelmi Thorni Tullius, seu ῥήτωρ, in tria stromata divisus,' Oxford, 1592, 8vo. 2. 'Ἔσοπτρον Βασιλικόν. Or a Kenning-Glasse for a Christian King. Dedicated to James I,' London, 1603, 8vo.
[Hoare's Wiltshire, vol. iv., Hundred of Chalk, pp. 45, 177; Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 480; Pointer's Oxoniensis Academia, p. 242; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Kirby's Winchester Scholars, p. 150; Brit.Mus. Addit. MS. 24490, f. 603; Lansdowne MS. 984, f. 123.]
THORNHILL, Sir JAMES (1675–1734), painter, born in 1675 at Melcombe Regis, Dorset, was son of Walter Thornhill of Wareham, the eighth son of George Thornhill (or Thornhull) of Thornhill and Woolland in the same county. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Colonel William Sydenham, governor of Weymouth [q. v.], and niece of the famous physician, Thomas Sydenham [q. v.] His father, having dissipated his estate by extravagance, sent Thornhill as a boy to his great-uncle, Dr. Sydenham, in London, who placed him as pupil with Thomas Highmore [q. v.], the king's serjeant-painter, a Dorsetshire man and relative of the family. Thornhill was very industrious and made great progress in his art, so that he found himself able to travel on the continent and study the works of the Carracci, Nicolas Poussin, and other painters then in high repute. By them he was greatly influenced in his art, and he commenced to form a choice collection of their works.
At this time in England the spacious saloons and staircases of the mansions erected by Wren, Vanbrugh, and other architects in the Italian style, afforded a great scope for the art of the decorative painter. Verrio had been brought over from Italy, and Laguerre had succeeded him. Thornhill on his return to England quickly found employment in the same branch of art, and became a rival of Laguerre. He attracted the notice of Queen Anne, who employed him on several important works in the royal palaces at Hampton Court, Greenwich, and Windsor. After the completion of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral it was decided, against the design and wish of Sir Christopher Wren, to decorate the interior of the dome with paintings, and Thornhill,
