Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Glover, Robert (d.1555)

691462Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 22 — Glover, Robert (d.1555)1890William Hunt

GLOVER, ROBERT (d. 1555), protestant martyr, came of a family of some wealth and position in Warwickshire, is described as gentleman, and resided at Mancetter. He was elected from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, in 1533, and proceeded B.A. 1538 and M.A. 1541. In common with his eldest brother, John of Bexterley, and another brother named William, he embraced protestant tenets. In 1555 the Bishop of Lichfield (Ralph Bayne) sent a commission to the mayor of Coventry and the sheriff to arrest either John or all three brothers, being especially anxious to take John. The mayor, who was friendly with the Glovers, gave them timely notice, and John and William fled, but Robert, who was sick, was taken in his bed, though the mayor tried to prevent the officer from making the arrest. He appears to have been a man of tall stature and resolute will, and though when he was first taken the mayor pressed him to give bail, he refused to do so. He was examined by the bishop at Coventry and at Lichfield, where he was lodged in a dungeon, and was finally handed over to the sheriff to be executed. On 20 Sept. he was burnt at Coventry along with Cornelius Bungey, a capper. Shortly before his execution he was attended and comforted by Augustine Bernher [q. v.] About 1842 tablets were erected in Mancetter Church to the memory of Glover and Mistress Joyce Lewis, another martyr. Glover left a wife named Mary, and children. Letters from him to his wife and to the 'mayor and bench' of Coventry are printed by Foxe. In an inquisition taken after his death he is described as late of Newhouse Grange, Leicestershire.

[Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vi. 635, vii. 389-399, viii. 776. ed. Townsend; Philpot's Examinations (p. 243) contains a letter from Philpot to R. G., Original Letters, Zurich, iii. 360, and Ridley, p. 383 (all Parker Soc.); Strype's Memorials, iii. i. 228, from Foxe; Ritchings's Narrative of Persecution of R. G., also mainly from Foxe; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 129.]

W. H.