1661. On the outbreak of the civil war he espoused the king's cause and ‘bore arms with the garrison of Oxford.’ In consequence he was deprived of his studentship by the parliamentary visitors in 1648, and returned to Scotland. There he attached himself to Charles II, and became an officer in his army. He took part in the battle of Worcester on 3 Sept. 1651, was wounded, taken prisoner, carried to Oxford, and conveyed thence to London, where his friends' importunity obtained his release (cf. ib. 1651–2, p. 11). He found himself in a state of distress from which he was relieved by (Sir) Edward Bysshe [q. v.], Garter king-of-arms. He obtained employment as an usher in Whitefriars in the school of the poet, James Shirley [q. v.], and in November 1658 was entered as a student of the Inner Temple. On the Restoration he was reinstated in his studentship by the visitors, but, finding himself disabled from holding it by the college statutes, he petitioned Charles II in December 1660 to grant him a dispensation (ib. 1660–1, p. 432). On 26 July 1666 he was appointed chaplain to Lord George Douglas's regiment of foot (ib. 1665–6, p. 540). He afterwards became chaplain to John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [q. v.] In 1672 he officiated as minister to the Scottish regiment in France (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. ii. 448a), and in 1673 he was appointed rector of Middleton Tyas in Yorkshire. He died suddenly in his chambers at Christ Church on 26 Oct. 1674, and was buried on the following day in the south transept of the cathedral, near his elder brother, Adam.
Whitford was an excellent scholar, and published ‘Musæi, Moschi, et Bionis quæ extant omnia, quibus accessere quædam selectiora Theocriti Eidyllia,’ Latin and Greek, London, 1655, 4to; republished with a new title-page in 1659. The work contained a dedication to Bysshe. He also translated into Latin three treatises by Sir Edward Bysshe, entitled ‘Notæ in quatuor Libros Nicholai Upton, de Studio Militari’ [see Upton, Nicholas], ‘Notæ in Johannis de Bado Aureo Libellum de Armis,’ and ‘Notæ in Henrici Spelmanni Aspilogiam’ [see Spelman, Sir Henry], which were published in one volume in 1654, London, fol. The last had been previously prefixed to Spelman's ‘Aspilogia’ in 1650. Whitford was the author of an appendix to Wishart's ‘Compleat History of the Wars in Scotland under the Conduite of James, Marquess of Montrose,’ 1660, and of some complimentary verses prefixed to Francis Goldsmith's ‘Hugo Grotius his Sophompaneas, or Ioseph,’ 1652.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 742, 1016–18, 1220; Welch's Alumni Westmon. 1852, p. 118; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 109; Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scoticanæ III. ii. 890; Dalton's Army Lists, 1892, i. 71; Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of the Colleges of Oxford, ed. Gutch, p. 513; Members admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547–1660, p. 373.]
WHITFORD or WHYTFORD, RICHARD (fl. 1495–1555?), 'the wretch of Syon,' obtained his name probably from Whytford, near Holywell, in Flint, where his uncle, Richard Whitford, possessed property. Wood states that he studied at Oxford, but this can have been only a temporary visit, since he was elected a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, about 1495. He was given leave of absence by his college for five years in 1496-7 that he might attend William Blount, fourth lord Mountjoy [q. v.], as chaplain and confessor, on the continent. In that capacity he received at Paris a letter from Erasmus, Lord Mountjoy's tutor, written shortly before 4 Feb. 1497, probably from the Chateau Tournahens, where Erasmus was staying. Erasmus addresses Whitford as his 'dear friend Richard,' and encourages him in his study of philosophy. In 1498 tutor, chaplain, and pupil returned to England; and perhaps at this time Whitford visited Oxford with Erasmus. Soon afterwards he became chaplain to Richard Foxe [q. v.], bishop of Winchester; and Roper, in his 'Life of More,' reports that in 1504 he encouraged More in his resistance to Henry VII's exactions. The speech against Foxe ascribed to Whitford sounds apocryphal, but the closeness of his friendship with More is attested by a letter written from 'the country,' 1 May 1506, by Erasmus during his second visit to England. He sends Whitford a Latin declamation composed against the 'Pro Tyrannicida' of Lucian. This Whitford is to compare with a similar effort of More's, and to decide which is better. The letter contains an enthusiastic estimate of More's abilities. It states that Whitford used to affirm Erasmus and More to be 'so alike in wit, manners, affections, and pursuits, that no pair of twins could be found more so.' It concludes, 'Both of us certainly you equally love; to both you are equally dear.' The letter occurs in the editions of these declamations which were printed with the translations from Lucian (e.g. Luciani Optiscula, Leyden, 1528, p. 210). It forms the dedicatory epistle of Erasmus's version of the 'Pro Tyrannicida' (Erasmi Opera, Leyden, 1703, tom. i.) When next heard of, Whitford, like his uncle, is
