bendary of Winchester, where he is also said to have been master of the hospital of St. Cross; was rector of Llanrhaiadr-in-Mochnant, Denbighshire, from 1601; principal of Hart Hall, Oxford, from 1604 to 1621; rector of Launton, Oxfordshire, from 1609; prebendary of Leighton Buzzard in Lincoln Cathedral from 1621; and prebendary of Westminster from 1623.
Williams, the lord keeper and dean of Westminster, was Price's countryman and kinsman, and by his favour Price also acted as sub-dean of the Westminster chapter. He was for a time a royal chaplain, although, according to Hacket, he never preached at court. By Williams's influence, too, Price was employed as a commissioner to inquire into the political and ecclesiastical condition of Ireland (Rymer, Fœdera, xvii. 358; Hacket, Scrinia Reserata). ‘He came off with praise by his majesty (James I) with promise of advance.’ Both Williams and Laud were credited with futile efforts to secure Price further church preferment. Williams is said to have suggested his name for the bishopric of St. Asaph, and Laud likewise, according to Prynne, urged his claim to a Welsh bishopric. When the archbishopric of Armagh was vacant in 1625, Williams is said to have offended the Duke of Buckingham by his persistence in recommending Price. Price, however, thought Williams lukewarm in the matter, and, after Ussher was chosen, ‘Price did never show Williams love, and the Church of England then or sooner lost the doctor's heart’ (Hacket).
Price held his various benefices till his death on 15 Dec. 1631. He was buried six days later in Westminster Abbey (Chester, Westm. Abbey Reg. p. 130). Prynne, who denounced him as ‘an unpreaching epicure and an Arminian,’ said that he died a papist. Prynne charged Laud with treating Price as a confidential friend despite his apostasy. Laud replied ‘that Price was more inward with another bishop [i. e. Williams] who laboured his preferment more than I,’ and denied the reports of Price's apostasy (Rome's Masterpiece, reprinted in the Troubles and Trials; see also Canterburies Doom, p. 355). Before Price's funeral Williams, as dean of Westminster, doubtless from a wish to embarrass his enemy Laud, called the prebendaries together, and told them that he had been with the sub-dean before his death, that he left him on very doubtful terms about religion, and consequently could not tell in what form to bury him. Dr. Nowell, one of the senior prebendaries, performed the funeral ceremony in the presence of the whole chapter (Heylyn, Exam. Hist. 1651, p. 74).
Price's nephew, William Lewis (1592–1667) [q. v.], master of the hospital of St. Cross, was his general legatee.
[Gale's Antiq. of Winchester, p. 121; Laud's Troubles and Trials; Wood's Fasti, i. 358 sq.; Foster's Alumni; Rymer's Fœdera, xvii. 358; Hacket's Scrinia Reserata; Fuller's Church History, vi. 319; Notes and Queries 8th ser. x. 111.]
PRICE or PRYS, THOMAS (fl. 1586–1632), captain and Welsh poet, eldest son of Dr. Ellis Price [q. v.], was ‘a gentleman of plentiful fortune,’ who followed a seafaring life for many years. He joined expeditions both under Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. In one of his poems he states that he and Captain William Myddelton [q. v.] and Captain Thomas Koet were the first who ‘drank’ (smoked) tobacco in the streets of London. This would be in 1586 (Hume, Hist. of England, ch. xli.; Fairholt, Tobacco, pp. 50–1). Price was present at the camp at Tilbury in 1588. He also fitted out a privateer at his own expense and contributed to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Subsequently, in conjunction with relatives and friends he did some buccaneering work on the Spanish coast, but when they persisted in such practices after peace was proclaimed they were warned by the English government and called to severe account.
Thomas Price was lord of the manor of Yspytty Ieuan, and by many authorities he is erroneously described as high sheriff of Denbighshire in 1599. His chief residence after the death of his father was Plas Iolyn, but he had a seat also in the Isle of Bardsey, which he had built out of the ruins of the old monastery.
Price and Captain William Myddelton are ranked by the author of ‘Heraldry Displayed’ among the fifteen gentlemen who fostered the literature of Wales during the eras of depression which followed the insurrection of Owen Glendower. The literary works of Thomas Price are in the British Museum. They form a large thick volume of prose and poetry, and are probably in his own handwriting (Addit. MS. 14872). Prefacing the works is a valuable introduction descriptive of the contents, dated November 1736, from the pen of Lewis Morris [q. v.] The chief prose works are: 1. A British history translated out of some Latin or English work until it reaches his own time. It generally agrees as to facts with that of Geoffrey of Monmouth, though very different in style and much shorter. It is full of anglicisms common to this day in Denbighshire. 2. ‘The British Expositor,’ a Welsh dictionary, older than that of Dr. Davies (1632), the first published in Welsh,
