for the degree of D.D. on the ground of the expense; it appears from Wood that he had then lately married. Button showed similar independence in successfully resisting the endeavour of the visitors to expel Edward Pocock from the Hebrew and Arabic lectureship on the ground of political disaffection. At the Restoration Button was ejected from all his offices and his place at Christ Church filled by Dr. Fell. Leaving Oxford, he retired to Brentford, where he kept a school. Baxter says that he was soon afterwards imprisoned for six months 'for teaching two knight's sons in his house, not having taken the Oxford oath.' At the date of the Declaration of Indulgence (1672) Button removed to Islington, and Sir Joseph Jekyll lived with him a as his pupil. He died at Islington in October 1680, and was buried in the parish church. A son died and was buried at the same time. Baxter in 'Reliquiae Baxterianae' speaks of him as 'an excellent scholar, but of greater excellency; a most humble, worthy, godly man, of a plain, sincere heart and blameless.' He left a daughter, who married Dr. Boteler of London.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 508, ii. 107, 158-9 (where a memoir is given); Wood's Gresham Professors; Baxter's Reliquiae, pt. iii. pp. 36, 96; Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial, i. 315, iii. 126; Brodrick's Memorials of Merton College; Burrows's Parliamentary Visitation of Oxford (Camd. Soc.)]
BUTTON, Sir THOMAS (d. 1634), admiral, fourth son of Miles Button of Worlton, in Glamorganshire, entered the naval service of the crown about the year 1589. Of his early career we have no exact information, though from casual notices we learn that, with occasional intervals of wild and even lawless frolic (Cal. S. P. Dom. 15 Jan. 1600), he served with some distinction in the West Indies and in Ireland. His good and efficient service at the siege of Kinsale is especially reported (Cal. S. P., Carew, 22 Oct. 1601), and won for him a pension of 6s. 8d. a day, which was confirmed on 25 March 1604. It is not, however, till 1612 that he comes prominently into notice, and then as the commander of an expedition to search for the north-west passage, under the direct patronage of Prince Henry, in whose name his instructions were drawn out. As captain of the Resolution, with the Discovery pinnace in company, Button put to sea early in May, and in the following August explored for the first time the coasts of Hudson's Bay, and named Nelson River after the master of the Resolution, who died there, New Wales, and Button's Bay, into which the river flows, and where he wintered. For such severe service the ships' companies were but poorly provided, and great numbers of them perished, although game was plentiful. In the following spring and summer, with much enfeebled crews, Button succeeded in examining the west coast of Hudson's Bay, so far as to render it certain that there was no passage to the west in that direction, and as autumn approached he returned to England. He was shortly afterwards appointed admiral of the king's ships on the coast of Ireland. This office he held during the rest of his life, exercising it for the most part on the station implied by the name, frequently also in the Bristol Channel or Milford Haven, where his duty was to suppress pirates, which, of different nationalities, and more particularly French and Turkish, infested those seas. The only important break in this service occurred in 1620, when he was rear-admiral of the fleet which, under the command of his kinsman, Sir Robert Mansel, made an unsuccessful attack on Algiers. He had already been knighted at Dublin by his cousin, Sir Oliver St. John, then lord deputy (Cal. S. P., Ireland, 30 Aug. 1616). In 1624 he was a member of the council of war, and in 1625 was on a commission for inquiring into the state of the navy. At this time he was necessarily a good deal in London, and appears to have resided at Fulham. The duties of his commission and of his command kept him in continual hot water with the navy board, against which he was supported by the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Denbigh. The quarrel reached a climax in February 1627–8. On the 12th Button wrote from Plymouth to Nicholas: ‘All the world will take notice if I be unhorsed of the ship in which I have so long served. If dismissed, I shall shelter myself under the lee of a poor fortune which, I thank God, will give me bread, and say as the old Roman did “Votis non armis vincitur.”’ On the 13th Lord Denbigh wrote to Buckingham that ‘he should be sorry if so able and honest a man as Sir Thomas Button were neglected;’ and on the 15th the navy board complained that Sir Thomas Button would ‘take no notice of any order unless he received the duke's immediate command.’ Buckingham's interest, however, seems to have brought him successfully through his difficulties. His later years were much embittered by a series of disputes with the admiralty regarding several instances of alleged misconduct on the one side, and the non-payment of his pension and allowances on the other. Of the charges against him, which amounted to neglect of duty, fraudulent appropriation of prizes, shel-
