he left money to the college, which was spent in building the north side of the front court.
Legge was a man of learning and a correspondent of Justus Lipsius. He is remembered chiefly, however, by his Latin tragedy of ‘Richard III,’ in three acts, which was performed in the hall of St. John's College in 1579. In this Palmer, afterwards dean of Peterborough, was the Richard, and Nathaniel Knox, eldest son of the reformer, played Hastings. This play is alluded to by Harington in his ‘Apologie of Poetry’ as a famous tragedy, and by Nashe in his ‘Have with you to Saffron Walden,’ and was probably the one which the Cambridge men asked Burghley's permission to substitute in 1592–3 for the English comedy that the queen had asked for (cf. Cooper, Annals of Cambr. ii. 518). There are manuscripts of ‘Richardus Tertius’ at Emmanuel and Caius Colleges and in the University Library at Cambridge; also among the Harleian and Phillipps collections. It was edited from the Emmanuel MS. for the Shakespeare Society by Barron Field in 1844, and again printed by Mr. Hazlitt in vol. v. of his edition of Collier's ‘Shakespeare's Library,’ 1875. Fuller states that Legge composed a tragedy on the subject of the ‘Destruction of Jerusalem,’ ‘and having at last refined it to the purity of the Publique Standard, some Plageary filched it from him just as it was to be acted.’ The ‘Destruction of Jerusalem’ is said by Mr. Fleay to have been acted at Coventry in 1577.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 454, 555; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Fleay's Chron. of the English Drama and Hist. of the London Stage; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1581–90, p. 43; Add. MS. 24488, f. 451 (Hunter's Chorus Vatum); Add. MS. 5875, f. 102; Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.]
LEGGE, WILLIAM (1609?–1672), royalist, was the eldest son of Edward Legge, sometime vice-president of Munster, by Mary, daughter of Percy Walsh of Moy valley, co. Kildare (Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, iv. 107). His father, Edward Legge, eldest son of William Legge of Cassils, Ireland, by Anne, only daughter of John, son of Miles Bermingham, lord Athenry, having contested the title to the family estates with his uncle John, without success, went to the Indies in1584 with Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1601, by the influence of his kinsman, Sir Charles Blount, eighth lord Mountjoy, he was made vice-president of Munster, and in 1607 gave valuable information on abuses connected with the survey of lands in Munster (Cal. State Papers, Carew, 1601-3, p. 397, Irish, 1603-8, passim). Edward Legge died in 1616. His son William 'was brought out of Ireland by Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby, President of Munster, his godfather, who had promised (his father being infirm) to take care of his education' (Collins, Peerage, ed. out, and on 7 Aug. 1638 was commissioned to inspect the fortifications of Newcastle and Hull, and to put both in a state of defence (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1637-8, p. 590). Strafford vigorously remonstrated against the proposal to make him captain of Hull in place of Sir John Hotham (Strafford Letters, ii. 288, 307, 310). Legge, however, was appointed master of the armoury and lieutenant of the ordnance for the first Scottish war (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1639-40, pp. 134, 167). In the spring of 1641 he was implicated in the plots for making use of the army to support the king against the parliament. Though examined as a witness with reference to the first army plot (18 May), he was not seriously implicated in it. A few weeks later, however, he was entrusted by the king with a petition denouncing the parliamentary leaders, for which he was to obtain signatures in the army, and played a leading part in what is termed the second army plot (Gardiner, Hist. of England, ix. 398; Husbands, Exact Collection, 4to, 1643, pp. 224, 228). In January 1642 the king attempted to obtain possession of Hull, appointed the Earl of Newcastle governor, and despatched Legge to secure the town, but the attempt failed (Gardiner, x. 152 ; Life of the Duke of Newcastle, ed. Firth, p. 330). On the outbreak of the civil war Legge joined the king's army, and was taken prisoner in a skirmish at Southam, Warwickshire, on 23 Aug. 1642 (Old Parliamentary History, xi. 397). Committed by the House of Commons to the Gatehouse, he made his escape about 4 Oct. 1642, and rejoined Charles at Oxford (Commons' Journals, ii. 799). Henceforth he closely attached himself to Prince Rupert, and was wounded and again taken prisoner while under his command at the siege of Lichfield in April 1643 (Warburton, Prince Rupert, ii. 163). At Chalgrove field, 18 June 1643, 'Serjeant-major Legge's courage having engaged him too far amongst the rebels [he] so long became their prisoner till themselves were routed' (His Highness Prince Rupert's late beating up of the Rebels' Quarters, &c. , Oxford, 1643, 4to, p. 9). Legge distinguished himself again at the first battle of Newbury (20 Sept. 1643), and 'the night after the king presented him with a hanger he had that day worn, which was in an agate handle
