Roger was author of: 1. ‘Compendium Moralis Philosophiæ,’ which is extant in Laud. Misc. MS. 616, and Bodleian 2664, both in the Bodleian Library; there was anciently a copy at Durham Cathedral (Cat. Vet. Script. Dunelm. p. 137, in Surtees Soc.) Roger's ‘Compendium’ was used by Sir John Fortescue (1394?–1476?) [q. v.] in his ‘Governance of England.’ It is not really a treatise of moral philosophy, but a series of moral disquisitions on the virtues and duties of princes. It is largely derived from Seneca among classical, and Helinand of Froidmont among mediæval writers. 2. ‘Imagines Oratorum,’ of which Leland says that he had seen a copy at St. Paul's. 3. ‘A manuscript at St. Paul's marked ‘W. D. 5,’ contains on folios 56–60 a list of pittances of the church of St. Paul, drawn up by Roger of Waltham (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. p. 69 a).
A table to Roger of Waltham's ‘Compendium Morale,’ compiled by Thomas Graunt (d. 1474), is in Fairfax MS. 4 in the Bodleian Library.
[Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense (Rolls Ser.); Hist. Dunelm. Script. Tres, p. cvii (Surtees Soc.); Simpson's Documents illustrative of the History of St. Paul's (Camd. Soc.); Leland's Comment. de Script. Brit. pp. 264–5; Bale's Centuriæ, iv. 16; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 340; Plummer's edition of Fortescue's Governance of England; Kingsford's Song of Lewes (in the latter two there are a few citations from the Compendium); other authorities quoted.]
ROGER of Chester (fl. 1339), chronicler. [See Chester.]
ROGER of St. Albans (fl. 1450), genealogist, was born at St. Albans, and became a friar of the Carmelite house in London. He wrote a genealogy and chronological tables, tracing the descent of Henry VI from Adam, beginning ‘Considerans historie sacre prolixitatem,’ of which there are copies, both in fifteenth-century hands, at St. John's College, Oxford, Nos. xxiii. and lviii. (the last containing the biblical part only). A copy in Queen's College, Oxford (No. clxviii.), is said to be the very roll which the author presented to Henry VI (Tanner, Bibl. Brit.), but it is in a sixteenth-century hand (Coxe, Cat.) The biblical part of the same work is in the Cambridge University Library, ed. iii. 55, 56. The Cottonian copy (Otho D. 1) was destroyed by fire. A closely similar work in Jesus College, Oxford (cxiv.), begins ‘Cuilibet principi congruum,’ and carries the chronological table to 1473.
[Villiers de St. Etienne's Bibl. Carmel.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.]
ROGERS, BENJAMIN (1614–1698), organist and composer, born at Windsor, and baptised at the church of New Windsor on 2 June 1614, was son of George Rogers of Windsor (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) He was a chorister of St. George's Chapel under Dr. Nathaniel Giles, and afterwards lay clerk. In 1639 he succeeded Randolph Jewitt [q. v.] as organist of Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. The outbreak of the Irish rebellion of 1641 drove Rogers from his post, and he returned as singingman to Windsor; but there also the choral services were discontinued about 1644. Occupied with composition and teaching, Rogers maintained himself, with the help of a small government allowance, in the neighbourhood of Windsor. By virtue of Cromwell's mandate, dated 28 May 1658, Rogers obtained the degree of Bac. Mus. of Cambridge, a distinction probably due to the influence of Dr. Nathaniel Ingelo [q. v.] For the city banquet given to the king to celebrate the Restoration, he supplied the music both to a hymn by Ingelo and to the 32nd Psalm, ‘Exultate justi in Domino,’ for which he ‘obtained a great name … and a plentiful reward’ (Wood).
As early as 1653 the fame of Rogers's ‘Sets of Ayres in Four Parts’ extended to the court of the emperor, and when Ingelo went as chaplain to the Swedish embassy upon the Restoration, he presented to Queen Christina some of Rogers's music, which was performed ‘to her great content’ by the Italian musicians at the Swedish court. His ‘Court-Masquing Ayres’ were performed with no less applause in Holland.
Rogers won a high reputation in England by his music for the services of the established church and by his reorganisation of important choirs. At the Restoration he had been reappointed lay clerk of St. George's Chapel, with an addition to his allowances in consideration of his playing the organ whenever Dr. Child was absent, and in 1662 he was also appointed organist to Eton College. Invited by Dr. Thomas Pierce [q. v.] to fill a similar post at Magdalen College, Oxford, he became, on 25 Jan. 1664–5, informator choristarum; his duties, which included the playing of the organs, were remunerated by a salary of 60l. and lodgings in the college. On 8 July 1669 he proceeded Mus. Doc. Oxon.
In 1685 Rogers ‘forfeited his place through misdemeanour,’ that is to say, through the misconduct of his daughter, whom he persisted in keeping at home, within the precincts. This irregularity, together with some trivial charges of loud talking in the chapel and the like, led to Rogers's dismissal, which has been wrongly ascribed to the persecuting
