the compiled than in the original part of his work, Roger is a sober and careful narrator. He gives much attention to legal and constitutional details, and supplies many accurate notices of foreign affairs. His readiness to accept miraculous stories has suggested to Bishop Stubbs an interesting discussion of the question how far such credulity in an author affects his credibility (Hoveden, iv. pref. xiv–xxiv). Several manuscripts of Hoveden's ‘Cronica’ are extant; the most important is that in the British Museum, MS. Reg. 14. C. 2, reaching to 1180; though not the author's draught it is a very fine manuscript of probably the end of the twelfth century, with annotations perhaps by the author himself. The companion volume, Bodleian MSS. Laud. 582, from 1181 to 1201, is ‘primarily a fair copy, but gradually running into the form of an original draught’ (Stubbs; cf. also Brit. Mus. Arundel MS. 69). The work was first printed by Sir Henry Savile in his ‘Scriptores post Bedam,’ 1596, reprinted at Frankfort in 1601, and has been edited with a new text, prefaces, and other apparatus by Bishop Stubbs in four vols. for the Rolls Series, 1868–71. Extracts were made from manuscript by Leland in his ‘Collectanea,’ and from Savile's edition by Leibnitz in his ‘Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium.’ A large portion, also from Savile's edition, is in the ‘Recueil des Historiens.’
[Bishop Stubbs's prefaces to the four volumes of his edition of Hoveden in the Rolls Ser.]
HOVENDEN or HOVEDEN, ROBERT (1544–1614), warden of All Souls' College, Oxford, born in 1544, was the eldest son of William Hoveden or Hovenden of Canterbury. He was educated at Oxford, was elected a fellow of All Souls' College in 1565, and graduated B.A. in the following year, and M.A. in 1570. He became chaplain to Archbishop Parker, and in 1570 or 1571 held the prebend of Clifton in Lincoln Cathedral (Le Neve, ii. 133). On 12 Nov. 1571 he succeeded Richard Barber as warden of the college. In 1575 he supplicated for the degree of B.D., but proceeded no further until 1580, when he performed all the exercises for the degrees of B.D. and D.D., making the pretensions of the pope the subject of his disputations. He was licensed as D.D. in 1581. In 1582 he filled the office of vice-chancellor of the university. In 1581 he was holding, with his wardenship, the prebend of Henstridge in the cathedral of Bath and Wells, and in 1589 the third prebend in Canterbury Cathedral.
Hovenden entered on his duties as warden of All Souls while the college was striving to preserve the ‘monuments of superstition’ in the chapel from demolition, but in December 1573 the orders of the commissioners in the matter were too stringent to be any longer disobeyed. Hovenden exerted himself, however, to secure the profitable management of the college estates. He caused to be made a series of maps of the collegiate property which are still in existence. He successfully resisted the request of Queen Elizabeth that the college would grant a lease of certain lands to Lady Stafford on terms which would have been disadvantageous to the college, although the lady herself offered the warden 100l. for the accommodation (cf. the correspondence on the subject between Hovenden and Elizabeth's ministers and others in Collectanea, Oxf. Hist. Soc., i. 180 seq.). Hovenden succeeded in recovering for the college the rectory of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, which had been granted to it by Cardinal Pole, but resumed by the crown on the accession of Elizabeth. He completed the warden's lodgings, which had been commenced about fifteen years before; enlarged the grounds of the college by adding the site of a house known as ‘The Rose,’ where there was a famous well; rearranged the old library, now disused, and converted into rooms; introduced a better system of keeping the college books and accounts; and put in order and catalogued the archives. An oaken cabinet in the record room still bears his name, written with his own hand.
Hovenden rigorously upheld his authority within the college. With the aid of the visitor, Archbishop Grindal, he compelled fellows who desired to practise law or medicine in London to vacate their fellowships (cf. his contest with Henry Wood, one of the fellows, as related in Strype, Parker, ii. 105). He carefully scrutinised claims to fellowships on the plea of founder's kin.
The principal alteration which he made in the constitution of the college was the admission of poor scholars (servientes), who in 1612 numbered thirty-one, but they were discontinued during the Commonwealth, and are now represented only by four bible clerks. Hovenden died on 25 March 1614, and was buried in the college chapel, where is his monument with an inscription (cf. Wood, Colleges and Halls). Hovenden married Katherine, eldest daughter of Thomas Powys of Abingdon, and is doubtfully said to have had a daughter, Elizabeth, wife of
