680

countess of Huntingdon. Next year, 1363, he was made a canon of the collegiate church in Hastings Castle on the 3rd of February, and of the royal chapel of St Stephen's, Westminster, then newly founded, or re-founded, on the 21st of April. He obtained the archdeaconry of Northampton on the 26th of April, and resigned it on the 12th of June, having been promoted to that of Lincoln, the richest of all his preferments, on the 23rd of May. On the 31st of October he was made a canon of York, and on the 15th of December provost of the fourteen prebends of Combe in Wells cathedral, while at some date unknown he obtained also prebends in Bridgenorth collegiate church and St Patrick's, Dublin, and the rectory of Menheniot in Cornwall. On the 5th of May 1364 he became privy seal, and in June is addressed by the new pope, Urban V., as king's secretary. On the 14th of March 1365 he was given 20s. a day from the exchequer that he is living in the household." He was so much the king's notwithstanding factotum that Froissart (i. 249) says " a priest called Sir William de Wican reigned in England. and without him they did nothing." In fact, as privy seal he by him everything was done was practically prime minister, as Thomas Cromwell was afterwards to Henry VIII. On the 7th of October 1366, William Edingdon, the treasurer of England and bishop of Winchester, died; on the 13th of October Wykeham was recommended by the king to the chapter of monks of St Swithun's cathedral priory and elected bishop.

see,

A long story has been made out of Pope Urban V.'s delay in the recognition of Wykeham, which has been conjectured to have been because of his nationalist proclivities. But little more than the ordinary delays took place. On the 1st of December the king, "for a large sum of money paid down," gave Wykeham, not only the custody of the temporalities of the but all the profits from the day of Edingdon's death. On the 11th the pope granted him the administration of the spiritualities. The papal court was then moving from Avignon to Rome, and on the 14th of July 1367 the bull of "provision" issued at Viterbo. Wykeham was in no hurry himself, as it was not till the 10th of October 1367 that he was consecrated, nor till the 9th of July 1368, after the war parliament which met on the 3rd of June had been dissolved on the 10th of June, that he was enthroned. Meanwhile he had been made chancellor on the 17th of September 1367-thus at the age of forty-three he held the richest ecclesiastical, and the best-paid civil, office in the kingdom at the same time. The war in France was disastrous, how far through Wykeham's fault we have no means of knowing. When parliament again met in 1371, the blame was laid on the clerical ministers, under the influence of Wycliffe. He had been born in the same year as Wykeham, and like him had profited by papal provisions to prebends in 1361, but had since led an attack on papal and clerical abuses. Parliament demanded that laymen only should be chancellor, treasurer, privy seal and chamberlain of the exchequer. On the 8th of March 1372 Wykeham resigned the chancellorship, and Bishop Brantingham of Exeter the treasurership, and laymen were appointed in their places, though Sir Robert Thorp, who became chancellor, was master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge, and as much a cleric as Wykeham had been when he was dean of St Martin-le-Grand and surveyor of Windsor Castle.

As soon as he became bishop Wykeham had begun his career as founder. In 1367 (Pat. 41 E. III. pt. 2, m 5) he purchased the estates of Sir John of Boarhunt, near Southwick, with which he endowed a chantry in Southwick Priory for his parents. Next year he began buying lands in Upsomborne, Hants, which he gave to Winchester College, and in Oxford, which he gave to New College. On the 1st of September 1373 he entered into an agreement (Episc. Reg. iii. 98) with Master Richard of Herton gramaticus" for ter years faithfully to teach and instruct the poor scholars, whom the bishop maintained at his own cost, in the art of grammar, and to provide an usher to help him. Meanwhile the war with France was even more unsuccessful under the lay ministry and John of Gaunt. Wykeham was named by the Commons as one of the eight peers In the parliament of 1373 to treat with them on the state of the realm. In the parliament

Alice Perrers, the king's mistress, a lady of good birth, and not which met on the 12th of February 1376, Lord Latimer and (as the mendacious St Albans chronicler alleged) the ugly but persuasive daughter of a tiler, were impeached, and Wykeham took a leading part against Latimer, even to the extent of opposing his being allowed counsel. parliament a council of nine, of whom Wykeham was one, was appointed to assist the king. But on the 8th of June the Black At the dissolution of council on the 16th of October to impeach Wykeham on articles Prince died. which alleged misapplication of the revenues, oppressive fines Alice Perrers returned. John of Gaunt called a on the leaders of the free companies, taking bribes for the release of the royal French prisoners, especially of the duke of Bourbon, who helped to make him bishop, failing to send relief to Ponthieu He was condemned on one only, that of halving a fine of 180 and making illegal profits by buying up crown debts cheap. paid by Sir John Grey of Rotherfield for licence to alienate lands, tion. Wykeham's answer was that he had reduced the fine and tampering with the rolls of chancery to conceal the transacbecause it was too large, and that he had received nothing for doing so. Skipwith, a judge of the common pleas, cited a statute under which for any erasure in the rolls to the deceit of the king owed 960,000 marks. 100 marks fine was imposed for every penny, and so Wykeham the 15th of March 1377 on the young prince Richard, and he was Wykeham was convicted, and on the 17th of November his revenues were seized and bestowed on ordered not to come within 20 m. of the king. He "brake up household . . . sending also to Oxford, whear upon almose and for God's sake he found 70 scollers, that they should depart to their frendis for he could no longer help or finde them " Angliae, lxxx.). But when convocation met in 1377 the bishops refused to proceed to business without Wykeham, and he was (Chron. fetched back from Waverley Abbey. He was exempted, however, from the general pardon issued on the occasion of Edward III.'s alities, on condition of his maintaining three galleys with 50 jubilee.. But on the 13th of June the prince restored his tempormen-at-arms and 50 archers for three months, or providing the obtained by a bribe to Alice Perrers. Meonstoke Perrers, part wages of 300 men. of the endowment of Winchester College, was certainly bought The St Albans monk says that this was on the 12th of June 1380 from Sir William Windsor, her husband, whose name seems to be derived from Windsor, helped Wykeham. But as Wykeham was of the party of the near Southampton water. As Hampshire people they may have Black Prince and his widow Joan of Kent, no dea ex machina was needed.

present at the coronation of Richard II on the 19th of July, On the 21st of June 1377 Edward III. died. Wykeham was and on the 31st of July full pardons were granted him under the privy seal, which at the request of Richard's first parliament were ratified under the great seal on the 4th of December 1377 Wykeham at once took an active part in the financial affairs of the new king, giving security for his debts and himself lending 500 marks, afterwards secured on the customs (Pat. 4 Rich. II. pt. i. m. 4). New Colleges. On the 30th of June he obtained licence in He then set to work to buy endowments for Winchester and foundation of " Seynt Marie College of Wynchestre in Oxenford " mortmain and on the 26th of November issued his charter of for a warden and 70 scholars to study theology, canon and civil law and arts, who were temporarily housed in various old halls. buildings, which were entered on by the college on the 14th of On the 5th of March 1380 the first stone was laid of the present April 1386. The foundation of Winchester was begun with a bull of Pope Urban VI on the 1st of June 1378, enabling Wykeham to found "a certain college he proposed to establish for 70 poor scholars, clerks, who should live college-wise and study in grammaticals near the city of Winchester," and appropriate to it bishopric. The bull says that the bishop "had, as he asserts, Downton rectory, one of the richest livings belonging to his studying grammar in the same city." On the 6th of October for several years administered the necessaries of life to scholars 1382 the crown licence in mortmain was issued, on the 10th-13th

m. 23, 41). The murder of the duke of Gloucester, Richard's uncle, in 1397, was followed next year by the assumption of absolute power by Richard. Wykeham was clearly against these proceedings. He excused himself from convocation in 1397, and from the subservient parliament at Shrewsbury in 1398. The extraordinary comings and goings of strangers to Winchester College, just opposite the gates of the bishop's palace at Wolvesey in 1399, suggest that he took part in the revolution of Henry IV. He appeared in the privy council four times at the beginning of Henry's reign (Proc. P.C. i. 100). On the 23rd of July 1400 he lent Henry IV. £500 for his journey towards Scotland, and in 1402 another £500, while a general loan for the war with France and Scotland on the 1st of April 1403 was headed by Wykeham

of October the site was conveyed, and on the 20th of October | to repay by midsummer, and did so (Pat. 18, Rich. II. pt. ii. 1382 "Sancte Marie collegium" or in vulgar tongue "Seinte Marie College of Wynchestre by Wynchestre" was founded for a warden and " 70 pore and needy scholars studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art and science of grammar." The first stone of the buildings was laid on the 26th of March 1388, and they were entered on by the scholars on the 28th of March 1394, not, as supposed at the quincentenary celebration in 1893, in 1393. While the new buildings were being erected, the college remained in the parish of "St John the Baptist on the Hill" of St Giles, supplying scholars to New College then as since. A reference to this in a letter of Wykeham's of the 8th of April 1388 has given rise to the creation of an imaginary college of St John the Baptist at Winchester by the Rev. W. Hunt (Dic. Nat. Biog.sub. "Chicheley"). The foundation was on the model of Merton and Queen's colleges at Oxford, to which grammar schools were attached by their founders, while fellows of Merton were the first wardens of both of Wykeham's colleges. Both were double the size of Merton, and the same size as the Navarre college of the queen of France and Navarre, founded at Paris in 1304, which also contained a school. But each of Wykeham's colleges contained as many members as the French queen's. The severance of the school which was to feed the college exclusively, placing it not at Oxford, but at Winchester, and constituting it a separate college, was a new departure of great importance in the history of education. Ten fellows and 16 choristers were added in 1394 to the 70 scholars, the choristers attending the school like the scholars, and being generally, during the first three centuries of the foundation, promoted to be scholars. The original statutes have not come down to us. Those which governed the colleges until 1857 were made in 1400. They state that the colleges were provided to repair the ravages caused by the Black Deaths in the ranks of the clergy, and for the benefit of those whose parents could not without help maintain them at the universities, and the names of the boys appointed by Wykeham and in his time show that "poor and indigent" meant the younger sons of the gentry, and the sons of yeomen, citizens of Winchester or London, and the middle classes generally, who needed the help of exhibitions.

The time which elapsed between the foundation and completion of the colleges may be attributed to Wykeham's preoccupation with politics in the disturbed state of affairs, due to the papal schism begun in 1379, in which England adhered to Urban VI. and France to Clement VII., to the rising of the Commons in 1381, and the wars with France, Scotland and Spain during John of Gaunt's ascendancy. Then followed the constitutional revolution of the lords appellant in 1388. When Richard II. took power on himself, on the 3rd of May 1389, he at once made Wykeham chancellor, with Brantingham of Exeter again as treasurer. Wykeham's business capacity is shown perhaps by the first record of the minutes of the privy council being kept during his term of office, and his promulgation in 1390 of general orders as to its business. At least one occasion is recorded in the minutes on which Wykeham, on behalf of the council, took a firm stand against Richard II. and that in spite of the king's leaving the council in a rage. Peace was made with France in August. On the meeting of parliament in January 1390 Wykeham resigned the great seal; and asked for an inquiry into the conduct of the privy council, and on being assured that all was well resumed it. He now showed that he had not by his charities wronged his relations by settling on his greatnephew and heir Thomas Wykeham, whom he had educated at Winchester and New College, Broughton Castle and estates, still held by his descendants in the female line, the family of Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (peerage of Saye and Sele). In July 1391 he obtained a papal bull enabling him to appoint at pleasure coadjutors to do his episcopal business.

On the 27th of September 1391, Wykeham finally resigned the chancellorship. For three years after there are no minutes of the Council. On the 24th of November 1394 Wykeham lent the king the sum of £1000 (some £30,000 of our money), which same sum or another £1000 he promised on the 21st of February 1395

with £1000, the bishop of Durham lending 1000 marks
(£666, 13s. 4d.), and no one else more than £500. Meanwhile
on the 29th of September 1394 he had begun the recasting of the
nave of the cathedral with William Wynford, the architect of
the college, as chief mason, and Simon Membury, an old Wyke-
hamist, as clerk of the works. On the 24th of July 1403, he
made his will, giving large bequests amounting to some £10,000
(£300,000 of our money), to friends and relations and every kind
of religious house. On the 16th of August 1404, he signed an
agreement with the prior and convent for three monks to sing
daily three masses in his beautiful chantry chapel in the nave of
the cathedral, while the boys of the almonry, the cathedral
He died on the 27th of September 1404, aged eighty.
choir-boys, were to say their evening prayers there for his soul.
muniment tower at Winchester college are no doubt authentic
His effigy in the cathedral chantry and a bust on the groining of the
portraits. The pictures at Winchester and New College are late
16th-century productions. Three autograph letters of his, all in
French, and of the years 1364-1366, are preserved, one at the British
Museum, one at the Record Office, a third at New College, Oxford.
A fourth letter imputed to Wykeham at the British Museum is shown
alike by its contents and its handwriting not to be his.

See Thomas Martin, Wilhelmi Wicami (1597); R. Lowth, Life
of Wykeham (1736); Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, William of Wyke-
ham and his Colleges (1852); T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester
College (1892); G. H. Moberly, Life of Wykeham (1887); A. F. Leach,
History of Winchester College (1899); and the Calendars of Patent
and Close Rolls. Edward III. and Richard II.
(A. F. L.)

WILLIAMS, JOHN (1582-1650), English archbishop and lord keeper, son of Edmund Williams of Conway, a Welsh gentleman of property, was born in March 1582 and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. He was ordained about 1605, and in 1610 he preached before King James I., whose favour he quickly gained by his love of compromise. The result was the rapid promotion of Williams in the church; he obtained several livings besides prebends at Hereford, Lincoln and Peterborough. In 1617 he became chaplain to the king, in 1619 dean of Salisbury, and in the following year dean of Westminster. On the fall of Bacon in 1621 Williams, who had meantime ingratiated himself with the duke of Buckingham, was appointed lord keeper, and was at the same time made bishop of Lincoln, retaining also the deanery of Westminster. As a political adviser of the king

returned to Raiatea, and made voyages among other island groups, including Samoa and the neighbouring islands. Williams returned to England in 1834 (having previously visited New South Wales in 1821); and during his four years' stay at home he had the New Testament, which he had translated into Rarotongan, printed. Returning in 1838 to the Pacific, he visited the stations already established by him, as well as several fresh groups. He went as far west as the New Hebrides, and, while visiting Eromanga, one of the group, for the first time, was murdered by cannibal natives on the 20th of November 1839.

His Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands was published in 1837, and formed an important contribution to our knowledge of the islands with which the author was acquainted. See Memoir of John Williams, by Ebenezer Prout (London, 1843); C. S. Horne, The Story of the L.M.S., pp. 41-54.

Williams consistently counselled moderation and compromise between the unqualified assertion of the royal prerogative and the puritan views of popular liberties which were now coming to the front. He warned Buckingham and Prince Charles of the perils of their project for the Spanish marriage, and after their return from Madrid he encountered their resentment by opposing war with Spain. The lord keeper's counsel of moderation was less pleasing to Charles I. than it had been to his father. The new king was offended by Williams's advice to proceed with caution in dealing with the parliament, with the result that within a few months of Charles's accession the Great Seal was taken from Williams. In the quarrel between the king and the Commons over the petition of right, Williams took the popular side in condemning arbitrary imprisonment by the sovereign. In the matter of ecclesiastical administration he similarly followed a middle course; but he had now to contend against the WILLIAMS, ROGER (c. 1604-1684), founder of the colony of growing influence of Laud and the extreme high church party. Rhode Island in America and pioneer of religious liberty, son of A case was preferred against him in the Star Chamber of revealing a merchant tailor, was born (probably) about 1604 in London. state secrets, to which was added in 1635 a charge of subornation It seems reasonably certain that he was educated, under the of perjury, of which he had undoubtedly been guilty and for patronage of Sir Edward Coke, at the Charter House and at which he was condemned in 1637 to pay a fine of £10,000, to be Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received his degree in deprived of the temporalities of all his benefices, and to be 1627. According to tradition (probably untrue), he studied law imprisoned during the king's pleasure. He was sent to the under Sir Edward Coke; he certainly devoted himself to the study Tower. In 1639 he was again condemned by the Star Chamber of theology, and in 1629 was chaplain to Sir William Masham for libelling Laud, a further heavy fine being imposed for this of Otes, in the parish of High Laver, Essex, but from conscientious offence. In 1641 he recovered his liberty on the demand of the scruples, in view of the condition of ecclesiastical affairs in House of Lords, who maintained that as a peer he was entitled England at the time, refused preferment. He soon decided to to be summoned to parliament. When the Long Parliament emigrate to New England, and, with his wife Mary, arrived at met, Williams was made chairman of a committee of inquiry Boston early in February 1631. In April he became teacher of into innovations in the church; and he was one of the bishops the church at Salem, Mass., as assistant to the Reverend Samuel consulted by Charles as to whether he should veto the bill for Skelton. Owing to the opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities the attainder of Strafford. In December 1641 the king, anxious at Boston, with whose views his own were not in accord, he to conciliate public opinion, appointed Williams archbishop of removed to Plymouth in the summer, and there remained for two York. In the same month he was one of the twelve bishops | years as assistant pastor. In August 1633 he again became impeached by the Commons for high treason and committed to assistant teacher at Salem, and in the following year succeeded the Tower. Released on an undertaking not to go to Yorkshire, Skelton as teacher. Here he incurred the hostility of the a promise which he did not observe, the archbishop was en- authorities of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by asserting, throned in York Minster in June 1642. On the outbreak of the among other things, that the civil power of a state could properly Civil War, after visiting Conway in the Royalist interest, he have no jurisdiction over the consciences of men, that the King's joined the king at Oxford; he then returned to Wales, and patent conveyed no just title to the land of the colonists, which finding that Sir John Owen, acting on Charles's orders, had should be bought from its rightful owners, the Indians, and that seized certain property in Conway Castle that had been deposited a magistrate should not tender an oath to an unregenerate man, with the archbishop for safe-keeping, he went over to the Parlia- an oath being, in reality, a form of worship. For the expression mentary side and assisted in the recapture of Conway Castle of these opinions he was formally tried in July 1635 by the in November 1646. Williams, who was a generous benefactor Massachusetts General Court, and at the next meeting of the of St John's College, Cambridge, died on the 25th of March 1650. General Court in October, he not having taken advantage of the WILLIAMS, JOHN (1796-1839), English Nonconformist opportunity given to him to recant, a sentence of banishment missionary, was born at Tottenham near London on the 29th of was passed upon him, and he was ordered to leave the jurisJune 1796. He was trained as an ironmonger, and acquired diction of Massachusetts within six weeks. The time was considerable experience in mechanical work. Having offered subsequently extended, conditionally, but in January 1636 an himself to the London Missionary Society, he was sent, after attempt was made to seize him and transport him to England, some training, in 1816 to Eimeo, in the Society Islands, where and he, forewarned, escaped from his home at Salem and prohe rapidly acquired a knowledge of the native language. After ceeded alone to Manton's Neck, on the east bank of the Seckonk staying there for a short time, he finally settled at Raiatea, river. At the instance of the authorities at Plymouth, within which became his permanent headquarters. His success as a whose jurisdiction Manton's Neck was included, Williams, with missionary here and elsewhere. was remarkable. The people four companions, who had joined him, founded in June 1636 the rapidly became Christianized and adopted many of the habits first settlement in Rhode Island, to which, in remembrance of of civilization. Williams was fairly liberal for his age, and the "God's merciful providence to him in his distress," he gave the results of his labours among the Pacific Islands were essentially name Providence. He immediately established friendly relations beneficial. He travelled unceasingly among the various island with the Indians in the vicinity, whose language he had learned, groups, planting stations and settling native missionaries whom and, in accordance with his principles, bought the land upon he himself had trained. From the Society Islands he visited which he had settled from the sachems Canonicus (c. 1565-1647) the Hervey group, where he discovered, and stayed for a con- and Miantonomo. His influence with the Indians, and their siderable time on, the island of Rarotonga. Most of the in- implicit confidence in him, enabled him in 1636, soon after habitants of the group were converted in a remarkably short arriving at Providence, to induce the Narragansets to ally time, and Williams's influence over them, as over the people of themselves with the Massachusetts colonists at the time of the other groups, was very great. Besides establishing Christianity Pequot War, and thus to render a most effective service to those and civilization among them, he also, at their own request, who had driven him from their community. Williams and his helped them to draw up a code of laws for civil administration companions founded their new settlement upon the basis of upon the basis of the new religion. While at Rarotonga he, complete religious toleration, with a view to its becoming "a with the help of the natives, built himself a 60-ft. ship, "The shelter for persons distressed for conscience" (see RHODE Messenger of Peace," within about four months; with this heISLAND). Many settlers came from Massachusetts and elsewhere,

among others some Anabaptists, by one of whom in 1639 Williams | of these difficulties. His views were further defined in Christiwas baptized, he baptizing others in turn and thus establishing anity and Hinduism (Cambridge, 1856), an expansion of the Muir what has been considered the first Baptist church in America. prize essay which he had won in 1848. He became vicar in 1858 Williams, however, maintained his connexion with this church of Broadchalke with Bowerchalke and Alvedistone, Wiltshire. for only three or four months, and then became what was known As a result of his favourable review of Bunsen's "Biblical Reas a "Seeker," or Independent, though he continued to preach. searches contributed to Essays and Reviews (1860) he was In June 1643 he went to England, and there in the following prosecuted for heterodoxy. An unfavourable judgment was given year obtained a charter for Providence, Newport and Ports- by the Canterbury Court of Arches in 1862, but reversed by the mouth, under the title "The Providence Plantations in the Privy Council in 1864. Williams died on the 18th of January Narragansett Bay." He returned to Providence in the autumn 1870. of 1644, and soon afterwards was instrumental in averting an Besides the above works his most important production was a attack by the Narragansets upon the United Colonies of New translation of the Hebrew Prophets with commentary (pt. i. 1866; England and the Mohegans. In 1646 he removed from pt. ii. edited by Mrs Williams 1871; pt. iii. though planned was never written). See Life and Letters, edited by Mrs Williams (2 vols., 1874); Providence to a place now known as Wickford, R.I. He was at and T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism (1893). various times a member of the general assembly of the colony, WILLIAMS, SIR WILLIAM FENWICK, Bart. (1800-1883), acted as deputy president for a short time in 1649, was president, British general, second son of Commissary-General Thomas or governor, from September 1654 to May 1657, and was an assistant in 1664, 1667 and 1670. In 1651, with John Clarke Annapolis, Nova Scotia, on the 4th of December 1800. Williams, barrack-master at Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at He (1609-1676), he went to England to secure the annulment of entered the Royal Artillery as second lieutenant in 1825. His a commission which had been obtained by William Coddington services were lent to Turkey in 1841, and he was employed as a for the government of Rhode Island (Newport and Portsmouth) captain in the arsenal at Constantinople. He was British comand Connecticut, and the issue of a new and more explicit charter, missioner in the conferences preceding the treaty of Erzerum in and in the following year succeeded in having the Coddington 1847, and again in the settlement of the Turko-Persian boundary commission vacated. He returned in the summer of 1654, in 1848 (brevet majority and lieutenant-colonelcy and C.B.). having enjoyed the friendship of Cromwell, Milton and other Promoted colonel, he was British commissioner with the Turkish prominent Puritans; but Clarke remained in England and in army in Anatolia in the Russian War of 1854-56, and, having been 1663 obtained from Charles II. a new charter for "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." Williams died at Provi- commanded the Turks during the heroic defence of Kars, repulsmade a ferik (lieutenant-general) and a pasha, he practically dence in March or April 1684; the exact date is unknown. general Muraviev in the battle of Kars on 29th September 1855. ing several Russian attacks and severely defeating the Russian Cold, cholera, famine and hopelessness of succour from without, however, compelled Williams to make an honourable capitulation on the 28th of November following. A baronetcy with pension for life, the K.C.B., the grand cross of the Legion of Honour and of the Turkish Medjidic, the freedom of the City of London with a sword of honour, and the honorary degree of D.C.L. of Oxford University, were the distinctions conferred upon him for his valour. Promoted major-general in November 1855 on his return from captivity in Russia, he held the Woolwich command, and represented the borough of Calne in parliament from 1856 to 1859. He became licutenant-general and colonel-commandant Royal Artillery in 1864, general in 1868, commanded the forces in Canada from 1859 to 1865, held the governorship of Nova Scotia until 1870, and the governorship of Gibraltar until 1876. He was made G.C.B. in 1871, and Constable of the Tower of London in 1881. He died in London on the 26th of July 1883.

Though headstrong, opinionative and rigid in his theological views, he was uniformly tolerant, and he occupies a high place among those who have striven for complete liberty of conscience. He was the first and the foremost exponent in America of the theory of the absolute freedom of the individual in matters of

religion; and Rhode Island, of which he was pre-eminently the founder, was the first colony consistently to apply this principle in practice.

Williams was a vigorous controversialist, and published, chiefly during his two visits to England, besides A Key into the Language of the Indians of America (written at sea on his first voyage to England (1643); reprinted in vol. i. of the Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society (1827), and in series i. vol. iii, of the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections); Mr Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered (1644); The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience (1644); Queries of Highest Consideration (1644); The Bloudy Tenent yet more Bloudy (1652); The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's (1652); Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health(1652); and George Fox Digged out of his Burrowes (1676).

His writings have been republished in the Publications of the Narragansett Club (6 vols., Providence, 1866-1874), the last volume containing his extant letters, written between 1632 and 1682. The best biographies are those by Oscar Straus (New York, 1894) and E. J. Carpenter (ibid. 1910). Also see J. D. Knowles, Memoir of Roger Williams (Boston, 1834), and Elton, Life of Roger Williams (London, 1852; Providence, 1853): New England Ilist, and Gen. Register, July and October 1889, and January 1899; and M.C.Tyler, History of American Literature, 1607-1765 (New York, 1878). For the best apology for his expulsion from Massachusetts, see Henry M. Dexter's As to Roger Williams and his "Banishment" from the Massachusetts Plantation (Boston, 1876), an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Massachusetts from revoking the order of banishment.

WILLIAMS, ROWLAND (1817-1870), English divine and scholar, was born at Halkyn, Flint, the son of Rowland Williams (d. 1854), canon of St Asaph, and educated at Eton and Cambridge. He was elected fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1839, and took orders in 1842. During the next few years he actively opposed the amalgamation of the sees of St Asaph and Bangor. In 1850 he became vice-principal and Hebrew lecturer at St David's College, Lampeter, where he introduced muchneeded educational and financial reforms. He was appointed select preacher of Cambridge University in 1854, and preached a sermon on inspiration, afterwards published in his Rational Godliness after the Mind of Christ and the Written Voices of the Church (London, 1855). He was charged with heterodoxy, and Alfred Ollivant (1798-1882), bishop of Llandaff, required him to resign his chaplaincy, but he remained at the college in spite

WILLIAMSBURG, a city and the county-scat of James City county, Virginia, U.S.A., on a peninsula between the York and James rivers, 48 m. by rail E.S.E. of Richmond. Pop. (1900) 2044; (1910) 2714. Williamsburg is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio railway. It is the seat of the Williamsburg Female Institute (Presbyterian), and of the College of William and Mary, chartered by the Crown in 1693 and the second oldest college in the United States. Besides the main building and the president's house, the College of William and Mary has a science hall, a gymnasium, a library building, an infirmary and dormitories; in front of the main building is a statue by Richard Hayward of Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt (1717-1770), the most popular royal governor of Virginia. The college offers a classical course and a scientific course, two-thirds of the work in each being prescribed, and in connexion with the normal department is the Matthew Whaley Model and Practice School. In 1909 there were 21 instructors and 228 students in the college, 6 instructors and 140 pupils in the model school, and 20,000 volumes, many of them rare, in the library. Since 1892 the college has published the William and Mary College Quarterly, an historical magazine.

Here in December 1776 was established the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the first American college "Greek Letter" Society, now an inter-collegiate honorary fraternity. The college suffered heavy losses during the War of Independence and in the Civil War. In June 1781 Lord Cornwallis made the president's house his headquarters, and the institution was closed for a few

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