LILY, WILLIAM (1468?–1522), grammarian, was born at Odiham in Hampshire. As Holland and Weever agree in giving the age at time of death, recorded on the tablet to his memory in the old St. Paul's, as fifty-four, and as Lily certainly died in 1522, he was in all probability born in 1468. He is said to have entered Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1486, two or three years after Colet. His choice of a college may have been influenced by the fact that Grocyn, then reader in divinity there, was his godfather. After graduating in arts he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and on his return made a prolonged stay in Rhodes, which the garrison of the Knights of St. John then made a safe retreat for western Christians. Passing thence to Italy, he studied under Sulpitius and Pomponius Lætus, and thus perfected himself not only in the Latin and Greek tongues, but also in the knowledge of classical antiquity for which he was afterwards noted (Beati Rhenani Ep. ad Bilibaldum; Sir T. Elyot, Governour, ed. 1883, i. xxxvi). On his return to England he shared with Grocyn and Linacre the honour of being one of the earliest Greek scholars in the country. He is probably the Willelmus Lilye, ‘scholaris,’ who was presented to the rectory of Holcot in Northamptonshire, 24 May 1492 (Lansdowne MS. 979, f. 32). The presentation was made by John Kendall [see under Kendall, John, d. 1485], prior of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, a fraternity with which Lily had become acquainted in Rhodes. It is certain that at one period of his life he contemplated entering the priesthood (Stapleton, Tres Thomæ, 1689, p. 7). He resigned the benefice in 1495, and afterwards married; it may therefore be presumed that he had not proceeded further than the minor orders of the church.
For some years afterwards Lily was engaged in the work of teaching in London, and was on terms of close intimacy with More. At his request Lily translated from the Italian the ‘Sorte composite per lo nobile ingegno di Lor. Spirito Perugino,’ a singular treatise on divination by throws of the dice, first printed at Brescia in 1488. He also joined More in friendly rivalry in the task of translating epigrams from the Greek Anthology into Latin elegiacs. This joint production was published in 1518 under the title of ‘Progymnasmata,’ and is an evidence of the flexibility of mind and command over both languages possessed by the two scholars. It is often hard to decide to which of the two the palm should be awarded. To this period also belongs the set of congratulatory verses which he wrote on the landing of Philip the Fair, 15 Jan. 1505–6.
When Colet was founding his new school in St. Paul's Churchyard, he saw in Lily one to whom he might safely entrust the conduct of it as its first high master. He was formally appointed to the office in 1512, when the building was finished (Gardiner, Admission Registers of St. Paul's School); but, as his son George speaks of him as having been master for fifteen years, it is probable that for some time previously he had been teaching a nucleus of boys gradually brought together for the purpose. His tenure of the high mastership was not a long one, but he sent out in the course of it some very distinguished men—Lupset, Denny, Edward, first baron North, Leland, and Sir William Paget. There is no authority for the story of his barbarous severity towards his scholars, which popular authors have long accepted (see the present writer's Vitrier and Colet, App. B, and his Life of Dean Colet, p. 261). In the summer of 1522 Lily was ready with a panegyric in Latin verse, and an address to be pronounced by one of his scholars when the Emperor Charles V rode past. But before the end of that year he died. Bishop Kennett gives the date (Lansdowne MS. 979, as above) as 5 Cal. March (25 Feb.) 1522–3; but according to Mr. Gardiner's ‘Admission Registers,’ a successor in the high mastership was appointed ‘vice Lily deceased’ on 10 Dec. 1522. His death was hastened, if not caused, by an injudicious operation for a boil or carbuncle which had formed upon his hip, and which had become inflamed by improper treatment. The operation was against the strongly expressed opinion of Linacre. Lily was buried in Pardon churchyard, adjoining St. Paul's Cathedral. On the demolition of the cloister there (by the Protector Somerset about 1549), his son George caused the tablet from his tomb to be set up with an additional inscription on the inside wall of St. Paul's Cathedral, near the north door. By his wife Agnes, who died at the age of thirty-seven, after seventeen years of married life, he had fifteen children, only two of whom, George Lily [q. v.] and Dionysia, are known to have survived him. Most of the others, along with their mother, seem to have fallen victims to the ravages of the plague, probably in 1517. The epitaph on Agnes Lily by her husband, in Latin elegiacs, stated that she died on 11 Aug. but did not specify the year (Harleian MS. 540, f. 58). His daughter Dionysia was married first to John Rightwise, surmaster of St. Paul's and afterwards successor to William Lily in the high mastership, and on his death in 1532 to James Jacob, then surmaster,
