DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0274
242 HISTORY OF
chapter, with great reluctance, submitted to the change, and the dean for some
time refused his assent; but as it seemed to be a determined object of the queen,
he was at length induced to yield an unwilling compliance. The prebendaries
were assigned certain pensions, and Weston was removed to the deanery of Wind-
sor: he was, however, deprived of it in the course of the following year by
Cardinal Pole, who was become the pope's legate to the court of Mary. The
cause of his dismission is said to have been the crime of adultery*. He appealed,
however, to the pope; but when he was preparing to go to Rome to prosecute
his suit, he was committed to the Tower, where he continued till the death of the
queen; when, in consequence of his ill state of health, he was allowed to reside
with a friend whose house was in Fleet-street, where he died in a few days after
his removal. His remains were interred in the church of the Savoy.
He possessed a bold, active character, and had the reputation of being a man
of learning, which indeed appears from his having been so much employed in the
early part of Mary's reign. He was chosen prolocutor in the first convocation
after her accession, and wras frequently ordered by the court to preach in the most
public places. He was also appointed to attend several of the state criminals on
the scaffold, among whom were the Duke of Suffolk and Sir Thomas Wyatt. He
was likewise called upon to be moderator in the disputation at Oxford between
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, and the most distinguished divines of the Romish
church in the two universities. These were no common distinctions; but his
serious and prolonged hesitation to gratify the queen by the surrender of his
deanery, occasioned his loss of the royal favour; while his immoral life had dis-
gusted and excited the enmity of Cardinal Pole. The only printed work of
Weston, which is now known, is the speech he made on being chosen prolocutor
of the convocation.
* Weston is represented by Burnet to have been a notorious drunkard.—History of the lief or ■>
ffltttion, p. 284.
chapter, with great reluctance, submitted to the change, and the dean for some
time refused his assent; but as it seemed to be a determined object of the queen,
he was at length induced to yield an unwilling compliance. The prebendaries
were assigned certain pensions, and Weston was removed to the deanery of Wind-
sor: he was, however, deprived of it in the course of the following year by
Cardinal Pole, who was become the pope's legate to the court of Mary. The
cause of his dismission is said to have been the crime of adultery*. He appealed,
however, to the pope; but when he was preparing to go to Rome to prosecute
his suit, he was committed to the Tower, where he continued till the death of the
queen; when, in consequence of his ill state of health, he was allowed to reside
with a friend whose house was in Fleet-street, where he died in a few days after
his removal. His remains were interred in the church of the Savoy.
He possessed a bold, active character, and had the reputation of being a man
of learning, which indeed appears from his having been so much employed in the
early part of Mary's reign. He was chosen prolocutor in the first convocation
after her accession, and wras frequently ordered by the court to preach in the most
public places. He was also appointed to attend several of the state criminals on
the scaffold, among whom were the Duke of Suffolk and Sir Thomas Wyatt. He
was likewise called upon to be moderator in the disputation at Oxford between
Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, and the most distinguished divines of the Romish
church in the two universities. These were no common distinctions; but his
serious and prolonged hesitation to gratify the queen by the surrender of his
deanery, occasioned his loss of the royal favour; while his immoral life had dis-
gusted and excited the enmity of Cardinal Pole. The only printed work of
Weston, which is now known, is the speech he made on being chosen prolocutor
of the convocation.
* Weston is represented by Burnet to have been a notorious drunkard.—History of the lief or ■>
ffltttion, p. 284.