following month was raised to the peerage as Baron Farnborough of Farnborough in the county of Southampton. He died at Westminster Palace on the 17th of the same month, and after a public funeral service at St. Margaret's, Westminster, where a window was subsequently dedicated to his memory, was buried on the 24th in the churchyard, Chippenham, Cambridgeshire. His bust, by Mr. Bruce Joy, executed from photographs taken after his death, was unveiled by the speaker in the House of Commons on 6 March 1890.
Erskine May married, on 27 Aug. 1839, Louisa Johanna, only daughter of George Laughton of Fareham, Hampshire, by whom he had no issue. His title is accordingly extinct. He was a most able, faithful, and meritorious public servant, and was universally respected. Besides his great work on parliamentary procedure he published a learned work on ‘The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III,’ 1760–1860, which is worthy to rank with that of Hallam, of which it is in fact a continuation; it has been translated into French and German (London, 1861–3, 2 vols. 8vo; 3rd edit., with supplementary chapter, London, 1871, 3 vols. 8vo). Another large undertaking was his ‘Democracy in Europe: A History,’ London, 1877, 2 vols. 8vo. He was also the author of a pamphlet entitled ‘Remarks and Suggestions with a view to facilitate the Despatch of Public Business in Parliament’ (London, 1849, 8vo), another ‘On the Consolidation of the Election Laws’ (London, 1850, 8vo). May was also a frequent contributor to the later volumes of the ‘Penny Cyclopædia,’ the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ the ‘Law Magazine,’ and other periodicals. A reprint of his article on ‘Parliament,’ from the ‘Penny Cyclopædia,’ is in ‘Knight's Store of Knowledge,’ London, 1841, 8vo. His article on ‘The Machinery of Parliamentary Legislation’ (‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1854) was reprinted in pamphlet form in 1881, London, 8vo.
[The Biograph, January 1882; Times, 18, 25, and 27 May 1886; Ann. Reg. 1886, pt. ii. p. 139; Law Times, lxxxi. 70; Middle Temple Register; Inns of Court Cal. 1878; Men of the Time, 11th edit.; Foster's Peerage, Alumni Oxon. and Men at the Bar; Parl. Papers, House of Commons (1867) [3849] 65; the Statutes, 2nd rev. edit. 1888, Pref.; Chron. Table and Index of Statutes, 1870, Pref.; Adams's Manual of Historical Literature, pp. 482, 525; London Gazette, 10 May 1886.]
MAY, MEY, or MEYE, WILLIAM (d. 1560), archbishop-elect of York, was a native of Suffolk, and elder brother of John May [q.v.], bishop of Carlisle. He was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated LL.B. in 1526, commenced doctor in 1531, and became fellow of Trinity Hall. In 1537 he was elected president of Queens' in succession to Dr. Heynes [q.v.], and not master of Trinity College, as Wood states. During his tenure of the presidency the college acquired the Cambridge house of the Carmelites. The latter, aware of the imminent dissolution of the monasteries, proposed to surrender their buildings to the president and fellows of Queens' College; but this amicable transaction was interrupted by a royal commission directed to May and three others on 17 Aug. 1538 ordering them to receive the surrender of the Carmelite house, and to send an inventory of all the goods to the crown. On 28 Nov. 1541 May purchased of the king's officers all the stone, slate, &c., for 20l., and on 30 Nov. 1544 he bought the site of John Eyre of Bury, to whom it had been granted by the king, but whether on his own account or on behalf of the college is not clear (Willis and Clark, Architectural Hist. of Cambridge Univ. ii. 3-6).
May was a vigorous partisan of the Reformation in its early days; in 1532 he was chancellor to Nicholas West, bishop of Ely, became vicar-general to his successor, Bishop Goodrich, and acted as his proxy at his installation in Ely Cathedral on 2 May 1533; in the same year he was Cranmer's vicar-general in Ely (Brewer, Letters and Papers, vi. 1340). In July 1534 he was appointed Cranmer's commissary to visit the see of Norwich, and when Bishop Nix declined to appear, May declared him contumacious, and condemned him in penalties for obstinacy. On 27 March 1535 he was instituted to the rectory of Bishops Hatfield, Hertfordshire, on the king's presentation, but held the preferment under a dispensation from the archbishop, not being ordained deacon and priest until the following year. In 1536 he was one of the king's commissioners to visit the diocese of Ely (Addit. MS. 5808, f. 130), and in the same year signed, as proctor of the clergy of Ely, the Six Articles. He was one of those commissioned to compose the 'Institution of a Christian Man' in 1537, and on 12 April 1538 he was admitted, on the presentation of Goodrich, to the sinecure rectory of Littlebury, near Saffron Walden in Essex. On 17 Oct. 1540 he was collated to the prebend of Balsham in Cambridgeshire, and on 10 Sept. 1541 he was made by the charter of erection first prebendary of the third stall in Ely Cathedral (Willis, Cathedrals, iii. 381; Le Neve, ed. Hardy, i. 356). On 1 Nov. 1545 he was collated to the pre-
