WILSON, THOMAS (1563–1622), divine, born in the county of Durham in 1563, matriculated from Queen's College, Oxford, on 17 Nov. 1581, aged 18, graduated B.A. on 7 Feb. 1583–4, and was licensed M.A. on 7 July 1586 (Clark, Indexes, ii. 102, iii. 119). He was elected chaplain of the college, apparently before he was ordained, on 24 April 1585. In July 1586 he was appointed rector of St. George the Martyr at Canterbury through the influence of Henry Robinson (1553?–1616) [q. v.], provost of Queen's College and afterwards bishop of Carlisle, to whom Wilson also owed his college education (cf. the epistle dedicatory to the Christian Dictionarie). He remained at Canterbury for the rest of his life, preaching three or four sermons every week, and winning the affections of the puritan section of his people, although more than once complained of by others to Archbishop Abbot for nonconformity. He was acting as chaplain to Thomas, second lord Wotton, in 1611.
Wilson died at Canterbury in January 1621–2, and was buried in his own churchyard, outside the chancel, on the 25th. A funeral sermon was preached (London, 1622, 4to) by William Swift of St. Andrew's, Canterbury, great-grandfather of Dean Swift. His portrait, engraved by Cross, prefixed to the ‘Commentarie,’ shows him to be a lean, sharp-visaged man; he was married and left a large family.
Wilson's chief work was his ‘Christian Dictionarie’ (London, 1612, 4to), one of the earliest attempts made at a concordance of the Bible in English. Its usefulness was soon recognised, and it ran through many editions. The fourth was much enlarged by John Bagwell (n.d., London); the fifth appeared in 1647; the sixth (1655, fol.) was still further augmented by Andrew Symson. Over his ‘Commentarie’ on Romans, a work written in the form of a dialogue between Timotheus and Silas, Wilson spent seven years. It was reprinted in 1627 (fol.), and reached a third edition in 1653 (4to). In 1611 he published in octavo a volume containing (a) ‘Jacob's Ladder; or, a short Treatise laying forth the severall Degrees of Gods Eternall Purpose,’ (b) ‘A Dialogue about Jvstification by Faith,’ (c) ‘A Receit against Heresie,’ and two sermons. Besides some further sermons and other works apparently lost, he wrote ‘Saints by Calling; or, Called to be Saints,’ London, 1620, 4to.
[Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 282; Granger's Biogr. Hist. i. 369; Hasted's Kent, iii. 471; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Registers of St. George the Martyr, Canterbury, ed. Cowper, 1891, pp. iii, vii, 19, 20, 21, 23, 182; information from the Provost of Queen's College, Oxford.]
WILSON, Sir THOMAS (1560?–1629), keeper of the records and author, born probably about 1560, is described in the admission register of St. John's College, Cambridge, as ‘Norfolciensis,’ and is said to have been ‘nephew’ of Dr. Thomas Wilson (1525?–1581) [q. v.], Elizabeth's secretary of state (Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1603–6, p. xx). No confirmation of this relationship has been traced, and the younger Wilson is not mentioned in the elder's will. Possibly he was the ‘Thomas Wilson of Willey, Hertfordshire, son and heir of Wilson of the same, gent.,’ who was admitted student of Gray's Inn on 11 Feb. 1594–5. He was educated apparently at Stamford grammar school, and matriculated from St. John's College, Cambridge, on 26 Nov. 1575. In 1583 he was elected on Burghley's nomination to a scholarship on the foundress's foundation at St. John's (Burghley in Lansd. MS. 77, f. 20; St. John's Coll. Register, per Mr. R. F. Scott). He graduated B.A. in 1583 from St. John's College, but migrated to Trinity Hall, whence he graduated M.A. in 1587. For fifteen years, according to his own account, he studied civil law at Cambridge. In 1594 he procured a letter from Burghley recommending his election as fellow of Trinity Hall. The recommendation was ineffectual, and Wilson betook himself to foreign travel.
In 1596, while sojourning in Italy and Germany, Wilson translated from the Spanish Gorge de Montemayor's ‘Diana,’ a romance, from which the story of ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ was partly drawn (Lee, Shakespeare, p. 53); it was dedicated to Shake-
