TOBIAS

MATTHEW  , or ToBIE (1546-1628), archbishop of York, was the son of Sir John Matthew of Ross in Herefordshire, and of his wife Eleanor Crofton of Ludlow . He was born at Bristol in 1546 . He was educated at Wells, and then in succession at University College and Christ Church, Oxford . He proceeded B.A. in 1564, and M.A. in 1566 . He attracted the favourable notice of Queen Elizabeth, and his rise was steady though not very rapid . He was public orator in 1569, president of St John's College, Oxford, in 1572, dean of Christ Church in 1576, vice-chancellor of the university in 1579, dean of Durham in 1583, bishop of Durham in 1595, and archbishop of York in 16o6 . In 1581 he had a controversy with the Jesuit Edmund Campion, and published at Oxford his arguments in 1638 under the title, Piissimi et eminentissimi viri Tobiae Matthew, archiepiscopi olim Eboracencis concio apologetica adversus Campianam . While in the north he was active in forcing the recusants to conform to the Church of England, preaching hundreds of sermons and carrying out thorough visitations . During his later years he was to some extent in opposition to the administration of James I . He was exempted from attendance in the parliament of 1625 on the ground of age and infirmities, and died on the 29th of March 1628 . His wife, Frances, was the daughter of William Barlow, bishop of Chichester . His son, SIR TOBIAS, Or TOBIE, MATTHEW (1577–1655), iS remembered as the correspondent and friend of Francis Bacon .

He was educated at Christ Church, and was

early attached to the court, serving in the embassy at Paris . His debts and dissipations were a great source of sorrow to his father, from whom he is known to have received at different times £14,000, the modern equivalent of which is much larger . He was chosen member for Newport in Cornwall in the parliament of 16or, and member for St Albans in 1604 . Before this time he had become the intimate friend of Bacon, whom he replaced as member for St Albans . When peace was made with Spain, on the accession of James I., he wished to travel abroad . His family, who feared his con-version to Roman Catholicism, opposed his wish, but he promised not to go beyond France . When once safe out of England he broke his word and went to Italy . The persuasion of some of his countrymen in Florence, one of whom is said to have been the Jesuit Robert Parsons, and a story he heard of the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of San Januarius at Naples, led to his conversion in 16o6 . When he returned to England he was imprisoned, and many efforts were made to obtain his reconversion without success . He would not take the oath of allegiance to the king . In 1608 he was exiled, and remained out of England for ten years, mostly in Flanders and Spain . He returned in 1617, but went abroad again in 1619 .

His

friends obtained his leave to return in 1621 . At home he was known as the intimate friend of Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador . In 1623 he was sent to join Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I., at Madrid, and was knighted on the 23rd of October of that year . He remained in England till 164o, when he was finally driven abroad by the parliament, which looked upon him as an agent of the pope . He died in the English college in Ghent on the 13th of October 1655 . In 1618 he published an Italian translation of Bacon's essays . The " Essay on Friendship " was written for him . He was also the author of a translation of The Confessions of the Incomparable Doctor St Augustine, which led him into controversy . His correspondence was published in London in 166o . For the father, see John Le Neve's Fasti ecclesiae anglicanae (London, 1716), and Anthony Wood's Athenae oxonienses . For the son, the notice in Athenae oxonienses, an abridgment of his autobiographical Historical Relation of his own life, published by Alban Butler in 1795, and A . H .

Matthew and A . Calthrop, Life of Sir Tobie Matthew (London, 1907) .