Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/166

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Palmer
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Palmer

1815. Settling at Tamworth, Staffordshire, he was twice elected high bailiff of the town. In 1831 he established a practice at Birmingham, but still maintained his residence and connection at Tamworth. He died 11 Nov. 1852, at Tamworth, and was buried in the new churchyard, which had once formed part of his garden. He married, on 29 Sept. 1813, Marie Josephine Minette Breheault, a French refugee of good family.

Palmer published: 1. ‘The Swiss Exile,’ a juvenile denunciation of Napoleon in heroic verse in thirty or forty pages (4to, n.d.), dedicated to Miss Anna Seward. 2. ‘Popular Illustrations of Medicine,’ London, 1829, 8vo. 3. ‘Popular Lectures on the Vertebrated Animals of the British Islands,’ London, 1832, 8vo. 4. ‘A Pentaglot Dictionary [French, English, Greek, Latin, and German] of the Terms employed in Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, practical Medicine,’ &c., London, 1845.

Palmer edited the ‘New Medical and Physical Journal,’ along with William Shearman, M.D., and James Johnson, from 1815 to 1819; the ‘London Medical Repository,’ along with D. Uwins and Samuel Frederick Gray, from 1819 to 1821. To both periodicals he contributed largely, as well as to the ‘Lichfield Mercury’ while John Woolrich was editor, and to the first five volumes of the ‘Analyst.’

[His works in the British Museum; Simms's Bibliotheca Staffordiensis.]

C. F. R. P.

PALMER or PALMARIUS, THOMAS (fl. 1410), theological writer, was a friar of the house of Dominicans in London. He took the degree of doctor of theology, and assisted in 1412 at the trial of Sir John Oldcastle (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iii. 329, 334). He was a friend of Richard Clifford [q. v.], bishop of London; was skilful in disputation, and wrote orthodox works to repair the schisms of the church. These were: 1. ‘Super facienda unione,’ which Leland saw at Westminster (Coll. iii. 48). 2. ‘De Adoratione Imaginum libellus,’ beginning ‘Nunquid domini nostri crucifixi,’ now in the Merton College MS. lxviii. f. 18 b. The second part is entitled ‘De Veneratione Sanctorum,’ and begins ‘Tractatum de sanctorum veneratione.’ 3. ‘De originali peccato’ (MS. Merton, ib.), beginning ‘Ego cum sim pulvis et cinis.’ Tanner ascribes the rest of the manuscript to him—‘De peregrinatione,’ on the pilgrimages to Canterbury—but the manuscript does not name Palmer as the author. 4. ‘De indulgentiis.’

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Pits, De Illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 591.]

M. B.

PALMER, Sir THOMAS (d. 1553), soldier, was the youngest of the three sons of Sir Edward Palmer, by his wife, the sister and coheiress of Sir Richard Clement, of the Moat, Ightham, Kent. His grandfather, John Palmer, of Angmering, Sussex, was a member of a family that had settled in Sussex in the fourteenth century; and of his father's two younger brothers, Robert was the founder of the Palmers of Parham in Sussex, while Sir Thomas served with distinction in the garrison at Calais. He was early attached to the court, and in 1515 he was serving at Tournay. On 28 April 1517 he was one of the feodaries of the honour of Richmond. The same year he became bailiff of the lordship of Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire. He was a gentleman-usher to the king in 1519, and at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. On 22 Aug. 1519 he was made overseer of petty customs, of the subsidy of tonnage and poundage, and regulator of the custom-house wherries; in 1521 he became surveyor of the lordship of Henley-in-Arden, and he also had an annuity of 20l. a year. He served in the expedition of 1523, and the same year had a grant of the manor of Pollicot, Buckinghamshire. The next year he had a further grant of ground in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, London. On 10 Nov. 1532 he was knighted at Calais, where he had become captain of Newenham Bridge. He was favourably noticed by Henry VIII, who played dice with him, and in 1533 he became knight-porter of Calais, an office of considerable importance. He was taken prisoner by the French in an expedition from Guisnes, and had to ransom himself. He gave an account of this and other services to Cromwell in a letter of 1534. He acted as commissioner for Calais and its marches in 1535 in the collection of the tenths of spiritualities. Palmer was at the affair of the Bridge of Arde in 1540, and the next year, wanting to secure a special pension, had leave to come over to London to try and secure it. In July 1543, when treasurer of Guisnes, he went with the force under Sir John Wallop against the French, and in August 1545 Lord Grey sent him on a message to the king. In this year he was captain of the ‘Old Man’ at Boulogne, presumably resigning it to his brother.

When Henry VIII died, Palmer had secured a reputation for unbounded courage. Though he hated Somerset, he was at first a member of his party, and was told off for service on the border. In 1548 he several times distinguished himself by bringing provisions into Haddington; but, having command of the lances in an expedition from Berwick,