Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/258

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

back to Moscow, where he died in 1699 (Luttrell, iv. 535). John Deane signed a single folio sheet published in London in 1699 under the title: ‘A Letter from Moscow to the Marquess of Carmarthen, relating to the Czar of Muscovy's forwardness in his Great Navy,’ dated from ‘Moscow, 8 March 1698–9. Deane was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1681, and often served on the council. A photograph of his portrait in the Pepysian Library faces p. 27 of vol. ii. of Bright's edition of Pepys's ‘Diary.’

[Deane's Life of R. Deane, pp. 56, 551–4; Pepys's Diary (Bright), passim; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–7; Lindsey's Season at Harwich, pt. ii. pp. 25–7, 42, 44, 162; Duckett's Penal Laws and Test Act, appendix, pp. 74, 285; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. i. pp. 529, 535, 553; Life, Journals, and Correspondence of S. Pepys, ii. 291, 238; Morant's Essex, i. 399, 453, ii. 387, 397; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 114, iii. 124, 419; Nichols's Collectanea, ii. 313; Alban Thomas's List of the Royal Society, 1718.]

G. G.

DEANE, HENRY (d. 1503), archbishop of Canterbury, is claimed as a member of the ancient family of Dene in the Forest of Dean, but not much very definite evidence has been brought forward to substantiate the assertion. The obscurity of the subject and his absolute silence in his will about his family suggest a humbler origin. He is also claimed as a member both of Oxford and Cambridge, but absolutely no evidence supports the latter claim, while the assertion of Wood that he took the degrees in arts and divinity at the former university is only corroborated by a possible allusion in a letter written by him to the university, in which he speaks of it as his ‘benignissima mater.’ His name does not occur in the mutilated register of graduates between 1449 and 1463, which is still preserved (Boase, Register of University of Oxford, Oxford Historical Society). The statement of Godwin that he was a member of New College is a blunder, and is not confirmed by the records of that society.

The first well-authenticated fact of Deane's life is his appointment in the first year of Edward IV's reign as prior of the house of Austin canons at Llanthony, near Gloucester, in theory a cell of the original Llanthony in the remote Vale of Ewyas in what is now northern Monmouthshire, but long far outstripping in importance the parent monastery. Under Deane's careful rule the younger Llanthony increased its prosperity. Divine worship and the rule of the order were sedulously maintained, and a beautiful new gateway, on which his escutcheon of three choughs or ravens (Archæological Journal, xvii. 28) can still be seen, was erected. On 10 May 1481 Deane procured a royal order to unite the languishing mother with the flourishing daughter. In consideration of a gift of three hundred marks, Edward IV directed that the possessions and the advowson of the Welsh Llanthony should be annexed to the English house, provided that a prior and four canons, whose good conduct was secured by their being removeable at pleasure, were maintained in the Vale of Ewyas so long as the peace of the marches allowed them to remain (Dugdale, Monasticon, vi. 139; Archæologia Cambrensis, i. 229–30).

Deane was much employed upon affairs of state. He became a friend and councillor of Henry VII, who on 13 April 1494 appointed him custodian of the temporalities of the see of Bangor from the death of the last bishop (Fœdera, xii. 553). He was with Henry's approval elected bishop of Bangor, but before he had been consecrated he was appointed on 13 Sept. chancellor of Ireland (Gairdner, Letters and Papers of Richard III and Henry VII, ii. 374, Rolls Series), a country with which he must have had some previous acquaintance, as a notable part of the estates of his priory were situated there (Leland, Itinerary, iv. 173 a). The previous success of Simnel, the prevalence of the Yorkist cause in the Pale, the zeal shown for Warbeck, the unruliness of the great nobles, and the absolute independence of the native septs had induced Henry to send Sir Edward Poynings to Ireland as deputy for his second son Henry, appointed lieutenant on 11 Sept., while along with him he sent a number of English officials to assist him in taking the government out of the hands of the Anglo-Irish. Of these the prior of Llanthony was plainly the chief. On 13 Oct. Poynings landed at Howth and at once swore his chancellor and other English colleagues into the privy council. After some military operations a parliament met on 1 Dec. at Drogheda, and was opened by a speech from Deane as chancellor, at which ‘Poynings's Law,’ an act of resumption, and a long series of other important measures were passed. During Poynings's subsequent absence from Dublin on his campaigns in 1495 against Warbeck and Desmond in the south, Deane had practical charge of the government, and, bewildered perhaps by the difficulties of his position, besought the help of the O'Byrne for the safe keeping of the borders.

On 4 Jan. 1496 Poynings was recalled, leaving Deane as deputy governor. On 29 Jan. he was appointed deputy and justiciary of Ireland (Lansdowne MSS. xliv. 31). On 10 March he granted charters to Kilkenny (Rot. Pat.