Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/112

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Gregory
104
Gregory

and churches and other charities in the city, including one to the high altar of St. Mary Aldermary, in which parish he then resided, and also for an obit in Mildenhall Church. To this will he added a codicil on 2 Jan. 1466-7, and he must have died a day or two after, as the will was proved on the 23rd of the same month. He was buried in St. Anne's Church, Aldersgate. His chronicle has been printed in ‘Collections of a London Citizen’ (Camd. Soc.)

[Stow's Survey of London, ii. 121 (Strype's ed.); Herbert's Livery Companies, ii 318; Stowe MS. 958 in Brit. Mus.]

J. G.


GREGORY, WILLIAM (fl. 1520), Carmelite, was a Scotchman who studied at Montagu College, Paris, and in 1499 became a Carmelite of the congregation of Albi; he afterwards became prior of his order successively at Melun, Albi, and Toulouse, and vicar-general of the congregation at Albi. He was made (28 Dec. 1516) a doctor of the Sorbonne, and confessor to Francis I. Bale says he was living at Toulouse in 1528. Numerous works, chiefly theological, are ascribed to him; the first words of some of them are given by Bale and other writers. According to De Villiers, one of his works, ‘Funerale & Processionale secundum usum Carmelitarum,’ 8vo, was printed at Toulouse in 1518.

[Bale, xiv. 62; Harl. MSS. 1819 and 3838 (Bale's Collections); Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 343; C. De Villiers's Bibliotheca Carmelitarum, i 599; Le Long's Biblia Sacra, ed. 1723, p. 753.]

C. L. K.


GREGORY, WILLIAM (d. 1663), composer, became violinist and wind-instrument musician in the household of Charles I in 1626, and held the same position in the household of Charles II from 1661 to 1663. His compositions include an almain, coranto, sarabande, and jigge in Playford's ‘Court Ayres’ (1655), and vocal numbers for one or more voices in the ‘Treasury of Musick’ (1669), ‘Musical Companion’ (1673), and ‘Ayres and Dialogues’ (1676 to 1683). Hawkins quotes the anthems, ‘Out of the deep,’ and ‘O Lord, thou hast cast us out,’ as the best known of Gregory's works. He died in August or September 1663, bequeathing sums to be paid from his wages due out of the treasury to his wife Mary, to two daughters Mary G. and Elizabeth Starke, to a daughter-in-law, and to a granddaughter. The residue was to go to his son, Henry Gregory, a member of the king's band in 1662 and 1674. A ‘John Gregory, singing man,’ was buried at Westminster Abbey in 1617. Prince Gregory was gentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1740 to 1755.

[State Papers, Dom. Ser. Charles I, 21 Feb. 1626, Charles II, 1661, 26 Aug. 1662, 24 July and September 1663; J. Playford's publications as quoted above; Registers of Wills, P. C. C. 114, Juxon; Wood's MS. Lives (Bodleian); Hawkins's History of Music, p. 713; Burney's History of Music, iii. 465; Dict. of Musicians, 1827, p. 299; Rimbault's Memoirs of Roger North, p. 98; Harleian Society's Publications, x. 114; Rimbault's Old Cheque Book, p. 53; Gent. Mag. 1755, p. 572.]

L. M. M.


GREGORY, Sir WILLIAM (1624–1696), judge, was the second and only surviving son of the Rev. Robert Gregory, vicar of Fownhope and rector of Sutton St. Nicholas, Herefordshire, by his wife Anne, daughter of John Harvey of Broadstone, Gloucestershire. He was born 1 March 1624, and was educated at Hereford Cathedral school. There appears to be no foundation for the statement that he became a member of All Souls' College, Oxford, and was elected a fellow as his father had been before him. He entered the society of Gray's Inn in 1640, and in 1650 was called to the bar. He joined the Oxford circuit, on which, as at Westminster, he soon obtained an extensive practice. He acquired several lucrative stewardships of manors in his native county, became recorder of Gloucester in 1672, and in the following year was elected a bencher of Gray's Inn. In 1677 he was made serjeant-at-law, and at a by-election in 1678 he was returned member of parliament for Weobly, Herefordshire. He was re-elected to the new parliament of 1679, and, after the king had three times refused to confirm the election of Edward Seymour as speaker, was proposed for that office by Lord Russell. Gregory begged the house to select a more experienced member, but when led to the chair by his proposer and seconder offered no resistance. As speaker he is stated to have been firm, temperate, and impartial, but he held the post for a few months only, as on the death of Sir Timothy Littleton in April 1679 he was appointed to his place as a baron of the exchequer, and was knighted. The trial of Sir Miles Stapleton for high treason took place before Gregory and Sir William Dolben [q.v.] in 1681. In Michaelmas term 1685 Gregory was discharged from his office for giving a judgment against the king's dispensing power, and in the next year was removed by royal mandate from his recordership. He was returned by the city of Hereford as a member of the convention of 1689, but gave up his seat on being appointed a judge of the king's bench. As a judge he was distinguished for his firmness and integrity. In his later years he was greatly afflicted with stone, which in the winter of 1694 confined him to his room for three months. He died in London 28 May 1696,