LEVINZ, LEVENS, or LEVINGE, ROBERT, D.C.L. (1615–1650), royalist, born in 1615, was a son of William Levinz of Senkworth, near Abingdon, who carried on the business of a brewer at Oxford. His grandfather, William Levinz, was an alderman of Oxford, and five times mayor at the close of the sixteenth century; he was buried in All Saints Church, where there is a fine recumbent effigy to his memory. Robert was uncle of Sir Creswell Levinz [q. v.], Baptist Levinz [q. v.], and William Levinz [q. v.] He matriculated at Lincoln College, and graduated B.A. on 4 Feb. 1634, and D.C.L. in 1642. He was commissary in 1640 to the Bishop of Norwich (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1640–1, pp. 394, 397). On the outbreak of the civil war he took up arms for the king at Oxford, and obtained the rank of captain, but on the capitulation of the city to the parliament in 1646 appears to have resumed his studies. After Charles I's execution he was employed by Charles II in various negotiations, and finally received a commission to raise troops in England for the new king at the time of Charles's Scottish expedition in 1650. The plot was discovered, and he was arrested in London. His papers were seized, and many blank commissions signed by the king were discovered among them. Levinz was taken before the council of state, and was handed over as a spy to the council of war. He was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be hanged. Offers were made to spare his life if he would betray his accomplices: this he refused to do, but acknowledged the truth of the accusations against himself, while protesting the justice of his cause. He was taken to Cornhill in a coach guarded by a troop of horse, and hanged against the Exchange on 18 July 1650. Lloyd speaks of his numerous friends, his prudence, and integrity. His wife was a daughter of Sir Peregrine Bertie, and granddaughter of Robert, earl of Lindsay.
A portrait appears in Winstanley's ‘Loyal Martyrology,’ 1665.
[Winstanley's Loyal Martyrology, p. 28; Visitation of Oxford, 1573, private printed, by Sir T. Phillipps; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 73; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), i. 468, ii. 47; Lloyd's Memoirs, 1668, p. 560; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 464; Topographer, 1821, vol. i.]
LEVINZ, WILLIAM (1625–1698), president of St. John's College, Oxford, born 25 July 1625, was the son of William Levinz of Evenley, near Brackley, Northamptonshire. Sir Creswell Levinz [q. v.] and Baptist Levinz [q. v.], bishop of Sodor and Man, were his younger brothers, and Robert Levinz [q. v.] was his uncle. William was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, proceeded as probationary fellow to St. John's College, Oxford, in 1641, and became a fellow in 1644, taking the degree of B.A. in 1645, and M.A. in 1649. He refused to submit to the authority of the puritan visitors of the university in 1648 (Reg. of the Visitors, Camden Soc., pp. 50, 547), but must have submitted subsequently, as his name occurs continuously in the college register. He was ‘Terræ filius’ in 1651. At the reception of the chancellor Hyde on 9 Sept. 1661 Levinz, ‘though then very sickly,’ made a speech. He took orders, and proceeded to the degree of M.D. in 1666. On 10 Oct. 1673 he was elected president of his college. Wood did not think well of his appointment, since ‘he beats the students there and fights.’ In 1678 he was made sub-dean of Wells, and canon residentiary in 1682, Peter Mew [q. v.], then bishop of Bath and Wells, being a former president of St. John's. Levinz had a considerable reputation for learning, and was Greek reader from about July 1661, and regius professor of Greek from 24 Nov. 1665 to 1698 (cf. Fullman, Notitia Oxoniensis Academiæ, 1675). He died suddenly, while addressing a college meeting, on 3 March 1697–8 (cf. letter from William Sherwin, printed in Wood's Life, ed. Bliss). He was buried in St. John's College chapel, where his monument remains, describing him as ‘optime literatus, mansuetus, modestus, justus, pius.’ He was unmarried. According to a manuscript note (by Wood?) in the Bodleian copy (Linc. 8o C. 521), Levinz wrote a history of the year 1660, entitled ‘Appendicula de Rebus Britannicis,’ which was printed anonymously (pp. 339–46) in the third (1663) and subsequent editions of the ‘Flosculi Historici Delibati nunc Delibatiores redditi sive Historia Universalis’ of the jesuit Jean de Bussières (cf. Hearne, Collections, ed. Doble, Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 103). He collected a library (cf. Bibl. Levinziana, 1698).
[Wood's Life and Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss; Wood's Life and Times, ed. Clark (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 361 n., ii. 214 n.; Robinson's Merchant Taylors' School Register, i. 142; authorities quoted above; information from the Rev. Dr. Bellamy, President of St. John's College.]
LEVIZAC, JEAN PONS VICTOR LECOUTZ de (d. 1813), writer on the French language, was born in Languedoc, probably about 1750, of a noble family of Alby. He was educated for the church, and obtained a canonry in the cathedral of Vabres. In 1776 he received a prize for an essay, ‘Le bienfait rendu,’ from the Académie des Jeux Floraux. At the revolution he fled to Holland, and thence to England. If he be, as
