was member for Ludgershall, Wiltshire, and took an active part in the opposition to the court; in May he was appointed assistant to the managers of the impeachment of Buckingham, and sat on several committees of the house (Commons' Journals, 1547–1628–9, pp. 900, 901, &c.). In February 1627–8 he was returned for Winchester, and was one of those appointed in May to frame the Petition of Right, in the debate on which he made an important speech (the substance is given in Forster's Life of Sir J. Eliot, ii. 180–1). He was one of the counsel chosen to defend Sir John Eliot in 1630, but his advocacy does not seem to have been quite judicious (cf. Gardiner, vii. 116). In October 1634, either to silence him, or because he had come to terms with the court, Mason was recommended by the king for the post of recorder of London, vacant by the appointment of Edward (afterwards Lord) Littleton [q. v.] as solicitor-general (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1634–5, p. 24). In 1635 he was commissioner for oyer and terminer in Hampshire, and died on Sunday, 20 Dec., in the same year (ib.) He was succeeded as recorder by Henry Calthrop (Remembrancia, p. 304).
Mason was author of: 1. ‘Reason's Monarchie; set forth by Robert Mason, dedicated to Sir John Popham, Chief Justice of England, and the rest of the Justices of Assize,’ 1602; it ends with some verses entitled ‘The Mind's Priviledge.’ 2. ‘Reason's Academie, set forth by Robert Mason of Lincolns Inne, Gent.,’ dedicated to Sir John Popham, 1605, small 8vo. At the end are some verses, ‘Reason's Moane,’ probably by Sir John Davies [q. v.], to whom ‘Reason's Academie’ has also been attributed. This book was reprinted in 1609, under the title ‘A Mirrour for Merchants, with an exact Table to discover the excessive taking of Usurie, by R. Mason of Lincoln's Inne, Gent.’ The headline throughout is ‘Reason's Academie.’ He also contributed to the ‘Perfect Conveyancer, or severall Select and Choice Presidents, collected by four severall Sages of the Law, Ed. Hendon, Robert Mason, Will. Noy, and Henry Fleetwood,’ London, 1655.
Mason must be carefully distinguished from a namesake and contemporary, Robert Mason (1589?–1662), who was fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, and secretary to the Duke of Buckingham. He was also proctor of the university, took an active part in the election of the duke as chancellor, and subsequently became LL.D. He was frequently employed in state affairs in France, accompanied Buckingham on his expedition to Rhé, became, apparently, treasurer of the navy, and received 500l. by the duke's will. He died at Bath in 1662, aged seventy-three, and left his library to St. John's College (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom., passim; Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, Cambridge, pp. 292, 491; Communications to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, ii. 341; Wills from Doctors' Commons, Camden Soc.).
[Works in Brit. Mus.; Harl. MS. 6799, ff. 102, 105; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser; Journals of the House of Commons, 1547–1628–9; Official Returns of Members of Parliament; Wood's Athenæ, ii. 582; Cat. of Early Printed Books; Lowndes's Bibl. Man.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Catalogue of the Huth Library, iii. 927; W. C. Hazlitt's Collections, 3rd ser.; Forster's Life of Sir J. Eliot, passim; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 267.]
MASON, THOMAS (1580–1619?), divine, states in his works that his father was heir to Sir John Mason [q. v.], and may have been Thomas, second son of Anthony Mason, alias Wikes (whose mother was half-sister to Sir John), and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Islay (whose sister was wife to Sir John). Anthony Wikes died in 1597 (Wikes's pedigree in College of Arms, Philpot, 1, 81, fol. 17). Mason was admitted at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 29 Nov. 1594, matriculated on 7 Jan. 1594–5, and left apparently without taking any degree. From 1614 to 1619 he held the vicarage of Odiham in Hampshire, and probably died about the latter year; for on 13 April 1621 his widow, Helen Mason, obtained a license for twenty-one years to reprint his works for the benefit of herself and her children (Rymer, Fœdera, 1742, vol. vii. pt. iii. p. 197).
He published: 1. ‘Christ's Victorie over Sathan's Tyrannie,’ London, 1615; a condensed version of Foxe's ‘Book of Martyrs,’ with extracts from other works. The running title is ‘The Acts of the Church.’ An enlarged edition appeared in 1747–8 in 2 vols. London, 8vo. 2. ‘A Revelation of the Revelation … whereby the Pope is most plainly declared and proved to be Anti-Christ,’ London, 1619.
Another Thomas Mason (d. 1660), also of Magdalen College, Oxford, was demy in 1596. He graduated B.A. on 13 Dec. 1602, was fellow of Magdalen College from 1603 to 1614, M.A. on 8 July 1605, B.D. on 1 Dec. 1613, and D.D. on 18 May 1631. He was in 1621 ‘attendant in ordinary’ in the family of the Earl of Hertford (cf. his Nobile Par). In 1623 he became rector of North Waltham, Hampshire, and of Weyhill, Hampshire, in 1624, and he obtained the prebend of South Alton in the cathedral church of Salisbury on 25 Aug. 1624. In 1626 the king recommended him to be pre-elected a supernumerary resident at Salisbury,
