professed father of the Society of Jesus. He was generally known by the name of Dormer, but he occasionally assumed the alias of Shirley. In 1678 he was serving on the Lincolnshire mission at Blyborough. James II had a great regard for him, and appointed him one of the royal preachers at the court of St. James. On the outbreak of the revolution in 1688 he escaped to the continent, was chosen rector of the college of Liège, and held that office till 23 April 1691. Dr. Oliver states that he died at Liège on 27 Jan. 1699-1700, but the catalogue of deceased members of the society records his death as occurring in London on 16-26 Jan. 1699-1700.
He is the author of `Usury explain'd: or conscience quieted in the case of Putting out Mony at interest. By Philopenes.' London, 1695-6, 8vo; reprinted in `The Pamphleteer' (London, 1818), xi. 165-211. Dr. John Kirk of Lichfield had in his possession in 1826 a manuscript Latin translation of `Usury explain'd,' made by Dr. Hawarden in 1701.
[Oliver's Jesuit Collections, 82; Cat. Lib. Impress. Bibl. Bodl. (1843), i. 734; Foley's Records, v. 586, vi. 390, vii. 378; De Backer, Bild. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1869), i. 1632; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 494; Catholic Miscellany, vi. 254.]
DORMER, JOHN (1734?–1796), officer in the Austrian army, was, according to Burke's Peerage, second son of the seventh Baron Dormer; was born 18 Feb. 1730; married in Hungary, on 22 May 1755, Elizabeth, daughter of General Count Butler of the kingdom of Hungary; and died at Grau 21 Nov. 1795. In reply to inquiries at the Imperial Royal War Ministry, Vienna, it is stated that the only officer of the name on the rolls between 1750 and 1790 is one John or John Chevalier Dormer, born in London in 1734 or 1738, who in 1756 was a Roman catholic, unmarried, and serving in the Kleinhold cuirassier regiment, in which he had already served a year and a half. He became second rittmeister (second captain) in the regiment in 1762, and first rittmeister in 1763. The Kleinhold regiment was disbanded in 1768, and Dormer was transferred to Count Serbelloni's cuirassier regiment (now 4th dragoons). He married in 1776 a certain lady, Elizabeth (surname unrecorded), after making a deposit of six thousand florins; was pensioned off as a major 1 May 1782, and died 17 Nov. 1796.
[Authorities cited above.]
DORMER, ROBERT, Earl of Carnarvon (d. 1643), royalist, was the son of Sir William Dormer, knt., and Alice, daughter of Sir Richard Molyneux of Sefton (Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, vii. 69). His grandfather, Sir Robert Dormer, was raised to the peerage on 30 June 1615, by the title of Baron Dormer of Wyng, Buckinghamshire, which dignity he is said to have purchased for the sum of 10,000l. (Court and Times of James I, i. 365; Letters of George, Lord Carew, p. 13). Sir William Dormer died in October 1616, and Lord Dormer on 8 Nov. 1616 (Collins, vii. 70). Robert Dormer, then about six (ib.) or nine years old (Doyle, Official Baronage), was left a ward to the king, who assigned the lucrative wardship to his favourite, Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery (Court and Times of James I, i. 445). Dormer married, on 27 Feb. 1625, Anne Sophia Herbert, daughter to his guardian (Doyle). He appears to have been brought up as a catholic, for a contemporary newsletter states that Dr. Prideaux, vice-chancellor of Oxford, devoted three days to catechising the young couple, and describes the mother of the bridegroom as ‘an absolute recusant, and his brother like to prove so’ (Goodman, Court of King James, ed. Brewer, ii. 406). In the list of catholics who fell in the cause of Charles I the name of Lord Carnarvon is inserted, so that he appears to have returned to his early belief (Catholique Apology, ed. 1674, p. 574). On 2 Aug. 1628 Dormer was raised to the title of Viscount Ascot and Earl of Carnarvon (Doyle). He filled the offices of chief avenor and master of the hawks (ib.) In the first Scotch war he served in the regiment commanded by his father-in-law (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1638–1639, p. 582); in the second war he commanded a regiment. On 2 June 1641 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Buckinghamshire (Doyle). In 1642 he joined the king at York, and was one of the peers who signed the declaration of 13 June, agreeing to stand by the king, and the further declaration of 15 June, disavowing the king's alleged intention to make war on the parliament (Husbands, Exact Collection, 1643, pp. 349, 356). He appears as promising to maintain twenty horse for the king's service (22 June, Peacock, Army Lists, p. 8), and is mentioned in a letter of August 1642 as having raised a regiment of five hundred horse (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. 191). In consequence of this activity he was one of the persons specified in the instructions of the parliament to Essex to be excluded from pardon (Husbands, p. 632). At Edgehill Carnarvon served on the left wing under Wilmot, and his regiment formed the reserve in that division (Bulstrode, Memoirs, p. 81). Under the command of Prince Rupert he took part in the capture of Cirencester (2 Feb. 1643),
