Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/118

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of Sir John Coghill. There were two sons by this marriage—Gilbert, born in 1672, who died before he was two years old; and Christopher, who was born on 18 Feb. 1675 only a few months before his mother's death, which took place in the following September (Phillimore, p. 203). In the year following Wren married a second time—Jane, daughter of Lord FitzWilliam. Two children were the fruit of this marriage—Jane, born in 1677; and William in 1679. Their mother died in the latter year (ib. p. 226). William survived his father, and died in 1738. Jane was for some years her father's constant companion, but died, aged 26, on 29 Dec. 1702, twenty years before his own death. Very touching is the epitaph on her tomb in St. Paul's crypt.

Christopher Wren (1675–1747), the son of his first wife, was educated at Eton and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, which he entered in 1691, but left without a degree. He laid in 1710 the last stone of the lantern which surmounts the dome of St. Paul's, in the presence of his father. He represented Windsor in parliament 1713–15 (Official Return Memb. of Parl. ii. 29, 37), and died on 24 Aug. 1747 (Gent. Mag. 1747, p. 447; Letters of Eminent Lit. Men, Camden Soc. p. 346). His first wife was Mary, daughter of Philip Musard, jeweller to Queen Anne. His second wife, Constance, daughter of Sir Thomas Middleton, and widow of Sir Roger Burgoyne, bart., died on 23 May 1734 (Gent. Mag. 1734, p. 275). He collected the documents which form the ‘Parentalia,’ afterwards published by his son Stephen in 1750, and dedicated to Arthur Onslow [q. v.], speaker of the House of Commons. Two letters written to him by Sir Christopher while he was quite a youth are printed in Miss Phillimore's ‘Life’ (pp. 282, 302), and show that their relations to one another were of an affectionate character. The younger Christopher was also a numismatist of some repute (Hearne, Collections, ed. Doble, ii. 264), and published in 1708 (London, 4to) ‘Numismatum Antiquorum Sylloge.’ His portrait, engraved by Faber, forms the frontispiece of the ‘Parentalia.’

[The main authority for Wren's life is Parentalia, or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens … compiled by the architect's son Christopher Wren and published by Stephen Wren, London, 1750, fol. Other lives are: Elmes's Life, 1823; Phillimore's Sir Christopher Wren, his Family and Times, 1881; and Stratton's Life, Work, and Influence of Sir Christopher Wren, printed for private circulation, 1897. See also Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1668 sqq. passim; Luttrell's Brief Relation; Pepys's Diary, ed. Wheatley; Sprat's History of Royal Society, 1667; Evelyn's Diary, ed. Wheatley, 1879; Hooke's Cometa, 1678; Boyle's Diary, ed. Bray, 1879; Newton's Principia, 1687; Ward's Lives of Gresham Professors, 1740; Birch's Hist. Royal Society, 1756; Weld's Hist. Royal Society, 1848; Biographia Britannica, 1766, vi. 4359–4378; Fergusson's Hist. of Modern Architecture, 1862; Papworth's Dict. of Architecture; Milman's Annals of St. Paul's, 1868; Longman's Three Cathedrals of St. Paul, 1873; Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble, and Wood's Life and Times, ed. Clark (Oxford Hist. Soc.); Burrows's Worthies of All Souls' College; R. B. Gardiner's Register of Wadham College, Oxford; Reginald Blomefield's Renaissance Architecture in England, 1897.]

F. C. P.

WREN, MATTHEW (1585–1667), bishop of Ely, eldest son of Francis Wren (1553–1624), mercer, of London, by his wife Susan, was born in the parish of St. Peter's Cheap, London, on 23 Dec. 1585 (baptised 2 Jan. 1586). The family, originally from Denmark, was settled in Durham in the fifteenth century. Wren's father, only son of Cuthbert Wren (d. 1558), was born at Monk's Kirby, Warwickshire; he is said to have kept, as a haberdasher, ‘the corner stall, next unto Cheap-Crosse’ (Wren's Anatomy, 1641, p. 2). Sir Christopher Wren [q. v.] was his nephew (cf. pedigree in Genealogist, n.s. 1884, i. 262–268, 1890, vi. 168–71).

Matthew was a protégé of Launcelot Andrewes [q. v.], then master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and hence was educated at Pembroke Hall (admitted 23 June 1601). He graduated B.A. in 1604–5, was elected fellow on 5 Nov. 1605, graduated M.A. on 2 July 1608 (incorporated at Oxford on 12 July 1608), ordained deacon on 20 Jan., priest on 10 Feb. 1610–11, and graduated B.D. in 1615, when Andrewes made him his chaplain and gave him (21 May 1615) the rectory of Teversham, Cambridgeshire. James I, who had taken notice of his skill in academic disputation (he had argued that the king's dogs ‘might perform more than others, by the prerogative’), appointed him (27 Jan. 1621–2) chaplain to Prince Charles. Being made D.D. (1623, incorporated at Oxford on 31 Aug. 1636), he accompanied Prince Charles to Spain. On his return he was installed (10 Nov. 1623) prebendary of Winchester, and next year (17 May) was inducted to the rectory of Bingham, Nottinghamshire, on which he resigned (8 Nov.) his fellowship. On 26 July 1625 he was admitted master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and proved himself a successful head. He looked after the college records, and collected money for building a new chapel (dedicated 17 March 1632–3), where