Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/239

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Kite
233
Kitto

he was one of the deputy-commissioners of the jewel office, and he was one of the prelates who, in the same year, accompanied Henry VIII and Queen Catherine to the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’ (Rutland Papers, ed. Jerdan, p. 30). Attended by six horsemen, he was also present at the meeting between Henry and Charles V at Gravelines in July (Letters, &c., vol. iii. pt. i. No. 906).

On 12 July 1521 he was translated by papal provision from Armagh to the bishopric of Carlisle. He was permitted to retain in the diocese of Armagh two canonries and one parochial church of the value of 60l., and was allowed to assume the title of an archiepiscopal see. He accordingly took the title of archbishop of Thebes in partibus (Brady, Episcopal Succession, i. 104, 216). Kite paid the pope for his translation 1,790 ducats, which the impoverished state of the papal exchequer rendered very welcome (Letters, &c., vol. iii. pt. ii. Nos. 1430, 1477). The royal mandate for the restitution to Kite of the temporalities of the see of Carlisle is dated 11 Nov. 1521 (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 240). He also held the living of St. Stephen, Walbrook, London, which he resigned in 1534. For these preferments he was largely indebted to the influence of Wolsey, ‘who conversed freely with him in his prosperity, and applied to him for necessaries as a faithful friend in his adversity’ (Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, pp. 119, 146). In 1522 he was actively repressing disorders on the Scottish border, and proved very useful to the warden, Thomas Fiennes, eighth lord Dacre. His correspondence with Wolsey vividly illustrates the disturbed state of the border country. Writing on 25 June 1524, he pointed out that he had to make a circuit of sixty miles out of the direct route in order to avoid thieves and reach Carlisle in safety. In 1524, and again in 1526, he was one of the royal commissioners to treat for peace with the king of Scotland. In 1529 he signed an instrument approving the reasonableness of the king's scruples concerning his marriage with Catherine of Arragon, and advising recourse to the pope for a speedy decision of the cause (Rymer, Fœdera, xiv. 301, 405, 406). On 13 July 1530 he was one of the four bishops who, with Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Warham, and the whole peerage of England, signed the bold letter to Pope Clement VII demanding the king's divorce. He signed the renunciation of the pope's supremacy on 15 Feb. 1534, but was one of the prelates who, adhering to Lee, archbishop of York, in 1536, opposed the advanced proposals made by Cranmer and his party in convocation (Fuller, Church Hist. bk. v. p. 212). During his occupancy of the see of Carlisle he made large additions to Rose Castle, the episcopal residence, one of the towers of which is still called by his name. After ruling pastorally, and ‘kepyng nobyl Houshold wyth grete Hospitality,’ but suffering in later years much ill-health, he died in London on 19 June 1537, and was buried in Stepney Church, where a marble slab, still extant, covers his remains, and bears a quaint English epitaph (cf. Weever, Funerall Monuments, pp. 539–40). By his will, dated the day before his death, he gave directions, which were disregarded, that his body should be buried near that of his father in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.

[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, passim; Nicolson and Burn's Westmorland and Cumberland, ii. 277; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 62, 531; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hibernicæ; Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, p. 491; Froude's Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, p. 443; Fuller's Worthies; Giustinian's Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII, ii. 162, 164, 165, 253–5; Godwin's Cat. of Bishops, 1615, p. 682; Godwin, De Præsulibus (Richardson); Leland's Collectanea, 1770, ii. 347; Lysons's Environs, ii. 688; Maitland's London, ii. 786; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 632; Percy's Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland, p. 430; Rymer's Fœdera, xiii. 759, xiv. 21, 29, 119, 301, 400, 406, 465; Ware's Bishops (Harris).]

T. C.

KITTO, JOHN (1804–1854), author of the ‘Pictorial Bible,’ son of John Kitto, a Cornish stonemason, and Elizabeth Picken, was born at Plymouth on 4 Dec. 1804. He was a sickly lad, caring for nothing but books. Between his eighth and eleventh years he was at four different Plymouth schools, and had no other schooling. In 1814 he was taken by his father to assist him at his trade. On 13 Feb. 1817, while carrying slates up a high ladder he fell a distance of thirty-five feet, and was thenceforth stone-deaf. Being now unfit for work, he was left to spend his time as he pleased, and devoted himself to reading, selling scraps of old iron, and painting children's pictures and shop-labels to procure pence to buy books. On 15 Nov. 1819 he was sent to the workhouse, where he was set to learn shoemaking. In November 1821 he was apprenticed to a Plymouth shoemaker named Bowden, who treated him badly, and in May 1822 he was taken back into the workhouse. In July 1823 some gentlemen became interested in his case, made provision for his support, and obtained permission for him to read in the public library. In 1824 Mr. A. N. Groves, an Exeter dentist, took him as a pupil, giving him board, lodging, and a small salary. Shortly after he came under deep