LANGLEY, THOMAS (d. 1581), canon of Winchester, was educated, at Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1537–8. He was chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer, and vicar of Headcorn, Kent, in 1548, and may be identical with the Thomas Langley, protestant reformer and exile, who was admitted into the English church and congregation at Geneva in 1556. Langley was rector of Boughton Malherbe, Kent, from 1557 to 6 Oct. 1559, when Queen Elizabeth presented him to a canonry at Winchester. He was installed on 15 Oct. following. On 7 Dec. 1559 he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Welford, Berkshire. After twelve years' study he was admitted B.D. at Oxford on 15 July 1560, without having previously taken his master's degree. In 1563 Langley was instituted to the vicarage of Wanborough, Wiltshire, on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Winchester, and held this license until his death, which took place before 31 Dec. 1581. In his will, dated 22 Dec. 1581, and proved 30 Jan. 1581–2 (Reg. in P. C. C., Tirwhite, fol. 1), he expresses a wish to be buried in the chancel of Wanborough Church.
He published:
- 'An Abridgement of the notable Woorke of Polidore Vergile, conteignyng the deuisers … of Artes, Ministeries, Feactes, & Civill Ordinaunces, as of Rites and Ceremonies commoly vsed in the Churche,' London, by R. Grafton (black letter), 16 April 1546; other editions are dated 25 Jan. 1546[–7], 1551, [1570], and 1659, 8vo. Copies of all the editions are in the British Museum. This is an abridged English version of Vergil's 'De Inventoribus Rerum.' Langley worked on one of the late Latin editions, and abridged his original by about two-thirds.
- 'Of the Christian Sabboth, a Godlye Treatise of Mayster Julius of Milayne, translated out of Italian into English by Thomas Langley,' London (William Reddell), black letter, 1552, 12mo. A copy is in the Lambeth Library.
- Latin verses in praise of the author and his work prefixed to William Cuningham's 'Cosmographical Glasse,' 1559.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 447; Oxf. Univ. Reg. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 242; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1st ser. iii. 879; Strype's Cranmer, 1694, p. 179; Rymer's Fœdera, xv. 543, 563; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglicanæ, ed. Hardy, iii. 33; Maitland's Index of Early English Books in the Lambeth Library, 1845, p. 62; Professor John Ferguson's Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil's work, De Inventoribus Rerum, 1888, pp. 17 et seq.; Sir Thomas Phillipps's Institutiones Clericorum in Comitatu Wiltoniæ, 1825, pt. i. pp. 221, 231; Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MS. 443, f. 11; Burn's Hist. Par. Reg. 1862, p. 278.]
LANGLEY, THOMAS (1769–1801), topographer, only son of Thomas Langley (d. 1801), by Mary, daughter of John Higginson, was born at Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on 10 May 1769, and baptised on 8 June following. He entered Eton College in 1780, and matriculated from Hertford College, Oxford, on 17 May 1787, proceeding B.A. on 9 July 1791, and M.A. on 5 June 1794. Having taken orders he was in 1793 licensed to the curacies of Bradenham and Taplow, Buckinghamshire, and was instituted on 2 Oct. 1800 to the rectory of Whiston, Northamptonshire, on the presentation of Frederick, second lord Boston, but appears to have been non-resident.
Langley was a careful collector of the antiquities of Buckinghamshire, and gave a good specimen of his literary capacity in 'The History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Desborough and Deanery of Wycombe in Buckinghamshire,' 1797, 4to, a work abounding in picturesque descriptions, but deficient in scholarly method. A large-paper copy of 'The History of Desborough,' containing the author's manuscript additions and original letters to him from the principal persons in the county, is among the Stowe MSS. in the British Museum. In 1799 Langley was contemplating the publication of a 'History of Burnham Hundred,' with the addition of plates, a feature which had been wanting in is former work.
In February 1800 Langley had completed a religious poem of some length, which he did not print. He died unmarried on 30 July 1801, and was interred on 5 Aug. in the family vault at Great Marlow, and is commemorated by a monumental tablet in the church. His will, dated 8 Feb. 1794, was proved on 9 Oct. 1801 (Reg. in P. C. C. 681, Abercrombie).
Another Thomas Langley, B.A., curate of Snelston, Derbyshire, was author of 'A Short but Serious Appeal to the Head and Heart of every unbiassed Christian,' 1799, 8vo.
