was appointed archdeacon of Canterbury; and in 1728 he was presented by George II to a prebendal stall in Canterbury Cathedral. He appears also to have held the rectory of Fetcham, Surrey, from 1726 to 1737 (Manning and Bray, History of Surrey, i. 487). In 1729 he was presented by his patron, Archbishop Wake, to the vicarage of Northolt, Middlesex, which he held in commendam till his death, and became in 1728 deputy prolocutor of the lower house of convocation (which, however, had been practically silenced in 1717), and prolocutor in 1734, and again in 1741. On 22 March 1738–9 he was elected in difficult circumstances warden of Wadham College, Oxford. His predecessor, Thistlethwayt, had had to resign his office and leave the country, and Lisle was generally regarded as specially competent to meet the emergency. He received the degrees of B.D. and D.D. by diploma on 10 April 1739. He held the wardenship for five years, and on the translation of Bishop Isaac Maddox to Worcester was appointed to succeed him at St. Asaph, to which see he was consecrated by Archbishop Potter on 1 April 1744. He only held the bishopric four years, being chosen to succeed Bishop Gooch (translated to Ely) at Norwich on 17 March 1747–1748. He died in Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, on 3 Oct. 1749, and was buried in the church of Northolt. His epitaph is given by Lysons (Environs of London, iii. 312).
Lisle printed one or two sermons, a ‘Concio ad Synodum,’ preached at the opening of convocation in 1734; a sermon preached on the consecration of a predecessor in the wardenship, Dr. W. Baker [q. v.], to the bishopric of Bangor in 1723; and Fast sermons in 1744, 1745. His chief claim to literary fame is based on the valuable series of inscriptions collected by him and his fellow-travellers during his Levant chaplaincies, which were printed in Edmund Chishull's [q. v.] ‘Antiquitates Asiaticæ,’ 1728. Those published formed only a small part of the notes of his eastern journeys, the whole of which, together with his other literary remains, were, according to the directions of his will, burnt by his executor. Two letters from Lisle to Dr. Ward of Gresham College, giving biographical information respecting certain alumni of Wadham, are preserved among the manuscripts at the British Museum (Addit. MS. 6209, f. 137). There is a portrait of Lisle in Wadham College Hall.
[Hutchins's Dorset, i. 143; Manning and Bray's Surrey, i. 487, iii. 379; Wood's Hist. of Oxford, ed. Gutch, iv. 594; Gardiner's Registers of Wadham Coll.; Bouchery's manuscript Memoir in Wadham Coll. Library.]
LISLE, THOMAS (d. 1361), bishop of Ely, called Lyle by Bale, Lylde in the ‘Historia Eliensis,’ and Lyldus by Godwin, received his education in the Dominican house at Cambridge, where he became a doctor of divinity, and joined the order of Predicant Friars. He acquired celebrity both as a diligent and eloquent preacher and as a theologian ‘ut illa ferebant tempora’ (Godwin), being a disciple of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. He also gained the royal favour, and being at Avignon, probably on diplomatic business, at the time of the death of Bishop Montacute of Ely in 1345, he was thrust into the see by Pope Clement VI, as acceptable to the king and prince (Rymer, Fœdera, v. 474), setting aside Alan of Walsingham, the choice of the monks. He was consecrated at Avignon on 24 July 1345, and was enthroned with great magnificence at Ely on Advent Sunday. The spontaneous breaking of the glass flagon containing the sacramental wine at his consecration, and the spilling of the wine on the altar, was regarded as an evil omen, which was abundantly verified in the episcopate of ‘this unfortunate prelate’ (Hist. Eliens., Anglia Sacra, p. 655; Baker, St. John's, p. 35). The pomp and state with which he commenced his episcopate, surrounded by a large retinue of splendidly habited attendants, led Lisle into expenses which he was unable to maintain. He was speedily compelled to reduce his establishment, and when in the year after his consecration the king demanded a loan he had to excuse himself on the ground of poverty (Reg. Lisle, fol. 47, apud Bentham, pp. 160–2). He was, however, an active prelate, visiting every part of his diocese, then one of the smallest in England, and preaching with much acceptance (Hist. Eliens. p. 655). But his haughty bearing and impracticable temper rendered him unpopular. He soon quarrelled with the prior and convent of Ely as to the exercise of their old-established privilege of digging clay and sand for the repairs of the cathedral on the episcopal demesne, and showered excommunications on all who in any way infringed the rights and prerogatives of the see (ib.) He visited the papal court in 1348, and again during the ‘black death,’ which made such ravages in his diocese that no fewer than ninety-two institutions to benefices were made in 1349–50. Great activity in church building prevailed during his episcopate, ten churches having been dedicated by him in the single year 1351–2 (Gibbons, Ely Episcopal Records, p. 144). Two miracles ascribed to the influences of St. Etheldreda are recorded while he was bishop (Hist. Eliens.
