wrote (25 Oct. 1621) offering him the advice of one ‘who had trod the paths before him and knew the rubbs in such a business to his great pains and charge;’ he subsequently advised him very strongly to follow his example in bequeathing books for the use of his readers (Gul. Camdeni et illustrium virorum Epistolæ, ed. Thomas Smith, 1691, pp. 314, 315).
Savile died at Eton on 19 Feb. 1622, having returned thither ‘resigned for death’ a few days previously (Chamberlain to Carleton, 16 Feb. 1622, Cal. State Papers, Dom.); he was buried at Eton ‘by torchlight to save expense, though he left 200l. for his funeral’ (1 April 1622, Cal. State Papers, Dom.). Monuments were erected to his memory both at Eton College and in Merton College Chapel, and are still in existence; and a public oration was made in his honour before the university of Oxford, in the divinity school, by Thomas Goffe (‘Ultima linea Savilii,’ Oxon. 1622).
Savile was the most learned Englishman in profane literature of the reign of Elizabeth (Hallam, Lit. Hist. of Europe, ii. 62). Richard Montagu [q. v.] speaks of him as ‘the magasine of all learning’ (preface to Diatribæ, 1621, p. 126) and ‘ad miraculum eruditus.’ Joseph Scaliger calls him ‘Savillius vir doctissimus’ (Epist. 232).
In appearance Savile is said to have been tall and ‘an extraordinary handsome man, no lady having a finer complexion’ (Aubrey, Lives of Eminent Men, II. ii.). There is a full-length portrait of him at Eton, and another full-length portrait, painted by Marcus Gheeraerts the younger [q. v.], in the university gallery, Oxford, presented by his wife in 1621.
About 1592 Savile married Margaret, daughter of George Dacres of Cheshunt, and widow of George, second son of Sir William Gerrard of Dorney, Buckinghamshire (Clutterbuck, Hist. of Hertfordshire, ii. 101). The lady possessed a considerable fortune (Hatfield MSS. 27 July 1595). She survived him with an only daughter, Elizabeth, who married, in 1613, the son of Sir William Sedley; Waller wrote on her death:
Here lies the learned Savile's heir,
So early wise and lasting fair,
That none, except her years they told,
Thought her a child or thought her old.
She was the mother of Sir Charles Sedley [q. v.] (Aubrey, II. ii.).
Savile wrote or edited the following works: 1. ‘The Ende of Nero and Beginning of Galba. Fower books of the Histories of C. Tacitus,’ &c., 1591, fol. The notes to this edition were translated by Isaac Gruter and published, Amsterdam, 1649. 2. ‘A View of certain Military Matters, or Commentaries concerning Roman Warfare,’ which first appeared in the 1591 edition of the translation of Tacitus, was subsequently translated into Latin by Freherus, and printed separately, 1601. 3. ‘Report of the wages paid to the Ancient Roman Soldiers, their vittayling and apparrel, in a letter to Lord Burleigh,’ 1595 (Somers Tracts, vol. ii.) 4to. 4. ‘Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam præcipui … primum in lucem editi,’ fol. 1596; published also at Frankfurt in 1601. ‘This edition is full of errors, amounting at times to downright unintelligibility’ (Preface to Will. Malm. ed. Rolls Ser.). In it appears the chronicle of the pseudo-Ingulph with the addition of the forged passage which makes Ingulph a student at Oxford in the twelfth century (Parker, Early History of Oxford, Oxf. Hist. Soc. p. 389; Archæological Journal, xix. 43). 6. ‘Sancti Gregorii … in Julianum invectivæ duæ,’ 1610, 4to. 7. ‘S. Johannis Chrysostomi Opera, Græce,’ fol. 8 vols. 1610–13. 8. ‘Ξενόφωτος Κυρόυ παιδείας βιβιίαη: Xenophontis de Cyri Institutione libri octo,’ 4to, 1613. 9. ‘Thomæ Bradwardini Arch. olim Cantuariensis de causa Dei contra Pelagium et de virtute causarum ad suos Mertonenses, libri tres ex scriptis codicibus nunc primum editi,’ fol., 1618. 10. ‘Prælectiones tresdecim in principium elementorum Euclidis,’ 4to, 1621. 11. Six letters written to Hugo Blotius, published in ‘Lambecius Bibliotheca,’ vol. iii. He also left several unpublished manuscripts which are now in the Bodleian Library. These include: 1. Orations (Bodl. MS. 3499, art. 18). 2. Tract of the original of the monasteries (ib. art. 17). 3. Tract concerning the union of England and Scotland, written at the command of the king (ib. art. 22).
Savile must be distinguished from Henry Savile (1570?–1617), fourth son of Thomas Savile of Banke, Yorkshire, who matriculated from Merton College on 11 Oct. 1588, graduated B.A. on 30 May 1592 and M.A. from St. Alban Hall on 30 June 1595, and was licensed to practise medicine on 28 Nov. 1601. According to Wood (Athenæ Oxon. ii. 201), he was known as ‘Long Harry,’ was an eminent scholar, especially in ‘painting, heraldry, and antiquities,’ and furnished Camden with the famous forged addition to Asser on which was based the myth of the foundation of Oxford by King Alfred (Parker, Early Hist. of Oxford, Oxf. Hist. Soc., who, however, assumes that ‘Long Harry’ and Sir Henry Savile were the same person). He died on 29 April 1617, and was buried in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London; a copy of his epitaph belonged
