ISHAM, ZACHEUS (1651–1705), divine, was the son of Thomas Isham, rector of Barby, Northamptonshire (d. 1676), by his wife Mary Isham (d. 1694). He was grandson of another Zacheus, who was first cousin once removed of Sir John Isham of Lamport, Northamptonshire, first baronet (d. 1651). He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1666, and was successively student, B.A. (1671), M.A. (1674), B.D. (1682), and D.D. (1689). After taking his degree in 1671 he acted for some time as tutor to Sir Thomas Isham, third baronet [see under Isham, Sir Justinian], and accompanied him on his travels in Italy and elsewhere. In 1679 he was an interlocutor in the divinity school at Oxford (Taswell, ‘Autobiography’ in Camden's Miscellany, iii. 28), and was speaker of the Morrisian oration in honour of Sir Thomas Bodley in 1683 (Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 151). He was appointed chaplain to Dr. Compton [q. v.], bishop of London, about 1685, obtained a prebend at St. Paul's in 1685–6, and was in 1691 installed a canon at Canterbury Cathedral. He became rector of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, in 1694, represented the clergy of the diocese of London in the convocation of 1696 (Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 552, v. 572), and was in 1701 appointed rector of Solihull, Warwickshire, where he died on 5 July 1705. He was buried in Solihull Church, and there is a monument to him on the chancel floor in which he is described as ‘Vir singulari eruditione et gravitate præditus, in concionando celeberrime fœcundus’ (Dugdale, Warwickshire, ed. Thomas, ii. 944). Isham was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Pittis, chaplain to Charles II; he had four sons and four daughters, the second of whom, Mary (d 1750), married Arthur Brooke, grandfather of Sir Richard de Capell Brooke, first baronet.
Besides sermons, including one on the death of Dr. John Scott (1694), which is incorporated in Wilford's ‘Memorials,’ Isham published: 1. ‘The Catechism of the Church, with Proofs from the New Testament,’ 1695, 8vo. 2. ‘Philosophy containing the Book of Job, Proverbs, and Wisdom, with explanatory notes,’ 1706, 8vo. There is a small work of his among the Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library entitled ‘The Catechism of the Church, with Proofs from the New Testament, and some additional questions and answers,’ 1694. An attestation by Isham and others is prefixed to ‘George Keith's Fourth Narrative … detecting the Quakers' Gross Errors in Quotations … ,’ 1706, 4to.
[Wood's Athenæ, iv. 654; Fasti, ii. 407; Cole's Athenæ Cantabr. i. f. 77; Dart's History and Antiquities of Canterbury Cathedral, 1726, p. 202; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 456; Bridges's Northamptonshire, i. 26, ii. 112; Hearne's Collections, ed. Doble, i. 322; Hasted's Kent, iii. 188, iv. 615; Ellis Orig. Lett. 2nd ser. iv. 65, where Isham is wrongly described as dean of Christ Church; information from the Rev. H. Isham Longden.]
ISLES, Lords of the. [See Macdonald, Donald, fl. 1420; Macdonald, John, d. 1388; Ross, John, eleventh Earl of Ross, d. 1498.]
ISLIP, JOHN (d. 1532), abbot of Westminster, was doubtless a member of the family which rose to ecclesiastical importance in the person of Archbishop Simon Islip [q. v.] John entered the monastery of Westminster about 1480, and showed his administrative capacity in minor offices, till in 1498 he was elected prior, and on 27 Oct. 1500 abbot of Westminster. The first business which he undertook was to claim for the abbey of Westminster the possession of the body of Henry VI, for whose canonisation Henry VII was pressing at Rome. The claim was disputed by Windsor and Chertsey, and the question was argued before the privy council, which decided in favour of Westminster. Henry VI's remains were removed from Windsor at a cost of 500l. Islip had next to advise Henry VII in his plan for removing the old lady chapel of the abbey church and the erection instead of the chapel which still bears Henry VII's name. The old building was pulled down, and on 24 Jan. 1503 Islip laid the foundation-stone of the new structure. The indentures between the king and Abbot Islip relating to the foundation of Henry VII's chantry and the regulation of its services are in the Harleian MS. 1498. They are splendidly engrossed, and have two initial letters which represent the king giving the document to Islip and the monks who kneel before him. The face of Islip is so strongly marked that it seems to be a real portrait (see Neale and Brayley, Westminster Abbey, ii. 188–92).
Islip seems to have discharged carefully the duties of his office. In 1511 he held a visitation of the dependent priory of Malvern, and repeated it in 1516, when he suspended the prior. His capacity for business led Henry VIII to appoint him a member of the
