of the king’s cause; and the latter very naturally kept his sentiments to himself. It was on this occasion that—according to that most untrustworthy authority, Foxe—although sent ambassador from the king of England, he declined to pay the pope the accustomed reverence of kissing his toe. The story may be true, for to one who stood so high in the favour of a powerful sovereign the discourtesy involved no very serious consequences. But the graphic addition that a spaniel, brought by the earl from England, at once gave his holiness’s foot the salutation refused by his muster, seems rather to show the spirit in which the tale is told than to invite our confidence in its veracity. The incident is arowedly related ‘as a prognosticate of our separation from the see of Rome.'
From Bologna Wiltshire took his departure into France, where he remained for some time trying to get the doctors of the university of Paris to give an opinion in the king's favour on the divorce question. He returned to England in August (Calendar, iv. 6571, 6579). From this time he was generally resident at the court, and the notices of him in state papers are frequent enough; but there is little to tell of his doings that deserves particular mention. What there is certainly does not convey a very high opinion of the man. Not many weeks after Wolsey's death he gave a supper to the French ambassador, at which he had the extremely bad taste to exhibit a farce of the cardinal’s going to hell (ib. v. No. 62). When the authority of the bishops was attacked in the parliament of 1532, he was, naturally enough, one of the first to declare that neither pope nor prelate had a right to make laws; and he offered to maintain that proposition with his body and goods (ib. No. 850). That he became a leader, or rather a patron, of the protestant party, was no more than might have been expected from his position, his daughter's greatness and the fortunes of his house being so closely connected with a revolt against church authority. Yet he was one of those who in 1533 examined the martyr Frith for denying the real presence; while he commissioned Erasmus from time to time to write for him treatises on religious subjects, such as on preparation for death, on the Apostles’ Creed, or on one of the Psalms of David (Erasmi Epp. lib. xxix. 34, 43, 48). The last thing recorded of him that is at all noteworthy is, that he and Sir William Paulet were sent on 13 July 1534 to the Princess Mary to induce her to renounce her title and acknowledge herself an illegitimate child! (Calendar, vii. 990). He died (as appears by a letter of his servant Robert Cranewell to Lord Cromwell) at his family mansion of Hever, in Kent, on 13 March 1539 (manuscript in Public Record Office).
[The authorities cited in the text]
BOLINGBROKE, Earl of. [See St. John, Oliver, d. 1646]
BOLINGBROKE, HENRY (1785–1855), writer on Demerara, was born at Norwich 25 Feb. 1785, the son of Nathaniel Bolingbroke. He sailed for Demerara 28 Nov. 1798, and returned to England 21 Oct. 1805. He sailed to Surinam, in Guiana, on 3 March 1807; here he was deputy vendue master for six years, and returned to Plymouth 25 June 1813. On 7 Oct. 1815 he married Ann Browne of Norton. Latterly he was in business in Norwich, where he died 11 Feb. 1855. He published ‘A Voyage to the Demerary,' 1807 (this work was prepared for the press by William Taylor, of Norwich, who rewrote some of the chapters).
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816; Robberds's Mem. of W. Taylor, 1843, ii. 254 private information.]
BOLINGBROKE, Viscount. [See St. John, Henry, l678-l751.]
BOLLAND, Sir WILLIAM (1772–1840), lawyer and bibliophile, the eldest son of James Holland, of Southwark, was educated at Reading School under Dr. Valpy, and admitted a pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, 26 Sept. 1789, at the age of seventeen. During his school days he wrote several prologues and epilogues for the annual dramatic performances in which the scholars took part, and for which Dr. Valpy's pupils were famous. At Cambridge he took his degree of B.A. in 1794, and M.A. in 1797. For three successive years (1797, 1798, and 1799) he won the Seatonian prize by his poems on the respective subiects of miracles, the Epiphany, and St. Paul at Athens, which were printed separately, and also included in the ‘Seatonian Prize Poems’ (1808), ii. 2133-97. On leaving Cambridge he determined upon adopting law as his profession, and was called to the bar at thc Middle Temple 24 April 1801. Bollnnd practised at the Old Bailey with great success; he was thoroughly conversant with commercial law, and soon became one of the four city pleaders. From April 1817 until he was raised to the bench he was recorder of Reading. He was a candidate for the common serjeantcy of the city of London in 1822, but in those days of heated political excitement was defeated by the late Lord Denman. In November 1829 he was created a baron of the exchequor, and
