the misgovernment of the kingdom he could only plead on the part of the cabinet that the house should forgive and forget. On 3 June, when Eliot in his great speech on the king's foreign policy declared that ‘to this French war the Palatinate had been sacrificed,’ May hastily arose to interrupt him. Eliot, however, was encouraged with cries of ‘Go on!’ from every side. ‘If he goes on,’ retorted May, ‘I hope that I may myself go out;’ but he remained to listen.
In February 1629 the goods of John Rolle, a member of the house, were seized for his refusal to pay tonnage and poundage. The question of privilege was raised in the commons on 19 Feb., and the custom-house officers were brought to the bar. It was May who alone with the feeble Sir John Coke [q. v.] sustained the weight of the defence of the government. He declared that it had never been heard ‘till this parliament’ that a member ‘should have his goods privileged against the king, and he is not yet satisfied that he ought.’ Later on he protested against obedience to the king's commands being counted as a delinquency. ‘When that is done his crown is at stake.’ When on 21 Feb. the committee declared by resolution that a member of the house ought to have privilege for his goods as well as for his person, May asked whether it was meant that he ought to have privilege against the king. The committee did its best to avoid a reply. Ultimately (23 Feb.) May endeavoured to effect a compromise between the king and the commons. ‘Think,’ he vainly pleaded, ‘upon some course to have restitution made.’
On 2 March 1629 May with the other privy councillors present did their best to rescue the speaker (Finch) from the violence of those who claimed for the house the right to adjourn itself. Overwork eventually told on him (ib. 1629–31, p. 287). In April he resigned the chancellorship of the duchy, and was made vice-chamberlain (ib. 1628–1629, p. 524). He wished for the mastership of the rolls, and Charles granted him in 1620 the office in reversion, but he did not live to enjoy it. He died from softening of the brain at his house in St. Martin-in-the-Fields on 9 June 1630 (Administration Act Book P. C. C., 1630), and was buried on the 11th in Westminster Abbey (Registers, ed. Chester, pp. 129, 137). He married, first, Jane, sister of Sir William Uvedale, knt., of Wickham Market, Suffolk, who died in childbed of a son, Richard, in May 1615 (Nichols, Collectanea, v. 372). On 3 Feb. 1615–16 he married secondly, at Bury St. Edmunds, Judith, daughter of Sir William Poley, knt., of Boxted, Suffolk, by whom he had, with several daughters, two sons, Charles (b. 1619), B.A. 1638 of St. John's College, Oxford, and Richard (1621–1644). Lady May died on 9 June 1661, aged about 63 (Hervey, Visitation of Suffolk, ed. Howard, i. 285).
May was seated at Carrow Priory, Norfolk, in 1624, and had some church patronage in that county (Blomefield, Norfolk, 8vo ed., iv. 81, 131, 530, v. 52). He is also said to have purchased the manor of Froyle, Hampshire, from Sir John Leigh of Stockwell, Surrey (Nichols, viii. 211).
[Gardiner's Hist. of England; Forster's Sir John Eliot; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 188; Middlesex County Records (Jeaffreson), iv. 349; Cal. of Clarendon State Papers, vol. i.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep.]
MAY, JOHN (d. 1598), bishop of Carlisle, a native of Suffolk, and brother of William May [q. v.], archbishop-elect of York, was matriculated as a pensioner of Queens' College, Cambridge, on 2 May 1544. He was appointed bible-clerk of his college, and in 1549-50 proceeded B.A., being elected fellow in 1550. He commenced M. A. in 1553, and acted as bursar of the college during 1553, 1554, and 1555. At midsummer 1557 he was ordained priest, and on 16 Nov. following he was instituted to the rectory of Aston Sandford, Buckinghamshire, on the presentation of Anne, countess of Oxford, which benefice he resigned in 1558 (Lipscomb, Buckinghamshire, i. 47). In 1559 he was elected to the mastership of Catharine Hall. In 1560 he commenced B.D., and was collated to the rectory of Long Stanton St. Michael, Cambridgeshire. In 1562 Archbishop Parker collated him by lapse to the rectory of North Creake, Norfolk; and he held likewise the moiety of the rectory of Darfield, Yorkshire. About 1564 he obtained a canonry of Ely, which he held until May 1582 (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, i. 361). In 1564 he was created D.D. In 1565 he was nominated one of the Lent preachers at court. On 26 Sept. in that year he was collated by Archbishop Parker to the rectory of St. Dunstan-in-the East, London, which he vacated in January 1573-4. He was admitted to the archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire by proxy on 3 Aug. 1569, in person on 8 Oct. 1571, and retained it until the end of 1588. He served the office of vice-chancellor of the university for the year commencing November 1569, and was in a commission to visit King's College, Cambridge, which had been thrown into a state of confusion by the conduct of Dr. Philip Baker [q. v.], the provost.
