Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Saul, Arthur
SAUL, ARTHUR (d. 1585), canon of Gloucester, of Gloucestershire origin, was admitted a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1544–5. He graduated B.A. in 1546, and M.A. 1548–9. He was fellow of Magdalen probably from 1546 to 1553 (Bloxam, Registers of Magdalen, iv. 99). In October of the latter year he was expelled at Bishop Gardiner's visitation (Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. i. 82). Under Mary he was an exile, and in 1554 was at Strasburg with Alexander Nowell [q. v.] and others (ib. p. 232; Cranmer, p. 450). Under Elizabeth Saul was installed canon of Salisbury in 1559, of Bristol in 1559, and of Gloucester in 1565 (3 June), and was successively rector of Porlock, Somerset (1562), Ubly, Somerset (1565), Deynton, Gloucestershire (1566), and Berkeley, Gloucestershire (1575). He subscribed the canons of 1562 as a member of convocation, but displayed a strong puritan leaning (Strype, Annals, i. i. 489–512). In 1565 he was appointed by Bentham, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, to visit that diocese, and by Grindal in 1576 to visit the diocese of Gloucester (ib. ii. 188; Grindal, p. 315). Saul died in 1585.
Arthur Saul (fl. 1614), doubtless the canon's son, was described as a gentleman in April 1571, when he addressed to the Houses of Parliament a ‘Treatise showing the Advantage of the use of the Arquebus over the Bow in Warfare’ (State Papers, Dom., Eliz. xx. 25). In April 1617 he was a prisoner in Newgate, and made a deposition concerning his employment by Secretary Winwood and the archbishop of Canterbury to report what English were at Douay (ib. Jac. I, xci. 20). He was author of ‘The famous Game of Chesse play truely discovered and all doubts resolved, so that by reading this small book thou shall profit more than by the playing a thousand mates,’ London, 1614, 8vo; augmented editions in 1620, 1640, and 1672; dedicated to Lucy Russell, countess of Bedford [q. v.]
[Authorities as in text; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, s.v. ‘Sawle;’ Clark's Oxford Reg.; Le Neve's Fasti; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 128; Fuller's Church Hist. iv. 153, 200.]