Worsley died at Appuldurcomb on 8 Aug. 1805, and was succeeded in the title (which became extinct in 1825) by his fourth cousin, Henry Worsley-Holmes. He married, in September 1775, Seymour Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Fleming, bart., of Brompton Park, Middlesex, and had by her a son Robert Edwin, who died before his father, and a daughter, who died unmarried. The amours of Lady Worsley with the Earl of Peterborough (who first met her at Sadler's Wells) and with others are duly chronicled by Waipole (Letters, via. 135, 166), and are satirised in such publications as the ‘Memoirs of Sir Finical Whimsy and his Lady’ (1782). On 21 Feb. 1782 Worsley brought an action against George M. Bissett, an officer in the Hampshire militia, claiming 20,000l. damages for criminal conversation with his wife. The jury found for the plaintiff, but, on the ground of his connivance, awarded him only one shilling damages. Lady Worsley (who afterwards took by royal grant the name of Lady Fleming) was married a month after her husband's death to Mr. J. Louis Couchet (Gent. Mag. 1805, ii. 874).
Worsley died intestate, and his estates and property devolved to his niece, Henrietta Anna Maria Charlotte, daughter of John Bridgman Simpson, who married, in 1806, Charles Anderson-Pelham, second baron Yarborough, created (1837) Earl of Yarborough and Baron Worsley. On the sale of the Appuldurcomb property the collections formed by Worsley were removed to the Earl of Yarborough's seat, Brocklesby Park, Ulceby, Lincolnshire. The statues at Brocklesby were described by Michaelis in his ‘Ancient Marbles,’ and Mr. A. H. Smith has since printed (1897) a critical description of the whole collection. Worsley's manuscript ‘Journal’ of his travels is preserved at Brocklesby.
Worsley's publications are: 1. ‘The History of the Isle of Wight,’ London, 1781, 4to (Walpole, in his Letters, viii. 53, 54, speaks contemptuously of it). 2. ‘Museum Worsleyanum; or a Collection of Antique Basso-Relievos, Bustos, Statues, and Gems’ (with portrait of Worsley and more than 150 plates), London, 1794−1803, 2 vols. fol., text in English and Italian (pt. i. issued in 1798, pt. ii. in 1802); 2nd edit. London (Prowett), 1824, 2 vols. sm. fol., with illustrations from the original copper-plates; German transl. by Eberhard and Schaefer, Darmstadt, 1827−8, 4to; an edition of the Italian text, with notes by Giovanni Labus, Milan, 1834 (part of Visconti's collected works). 3. ‘Catalogue raisonné of the principal Paintings at Appuldercombe’ (privately printed), 1804, 4to.
[Gent. Mag. 1805, ii. 781; Berry's County Genealogies, ‘Hants;’ Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715−1886; Burke's Extinct Baronetage; Michaelis's Ancient Marbles in Great Britain; Smith's Antiquities at Brocklesby Park; Donkin's Worsley v. Bissett, 1782; Allibone's Dict.; Brit. Mus. Cat.; information from Mr. Arthur Hamilton Smith.]
WORSLEY, WILLIAM (1435?−1499), dean of St. Paul's, born probably about
1435, is believed to have been the son of Sir Robert Worsley of Booths in Eccles, Lancashire, and his wife Maude, daughter of Sir John Gerard of Bryn, Lancashire. His brother Robert married Margaret, niece of William and Lawrence Booth [q. v.], both of them archbishops of York, to whose influence William owed most of his preferments. He was possibly educated at Cambridge, as no mention of him occurs in Wood; he is usually described as ‘sanctæ theologiæ’
‘professor,’ but in his epitaph is styled ‘doctor of laws.’ On 29 April 1449 he was collated to the prebend of Tachbrook in Lichfield Cathedral, on 30 March 1453 to Norwell Overall in Southwell, and in 1457 to South Cave in York Cathedral. These preferments were apparently conferred on him during his minority by his uncles, for it was not till 20 Sept. 1460 that he was ordained priest. On 19 May 1467 he was instituted to the rectory of Eakring, Nottinghamshire. On 28 Sept. 1476 he was admitted archdeacon of Nottingham, and on 22 Jan. 1478−9 he was elected dean of St. Paul's in succession to Thomas Winterbourne; he retained with it the archdeaconry of Nottingham and the prebend of Willesden in St. Paul's, and from 1493 to 1496 also held the archdeaconry of Taunton. Worsley held the deanery throughout the reigns of Edward V and Richard III, but in 1494 he became involved in the conspiracy in favour of Perkin Warbeck [q. v.] He was arrested in November, confessed before a commission of oyer and terminer, and was attainted of
high treason on the 14th (Rot. Parl. vi. 489b). The lay conspirators were put to death, but Worsley was saved by his order, and on 6 June 1495 he was pardoned (Gairdner, Letters and Papers, ii. 375). In October following parliament passed an act (11 Henry VII, c. 52) restoring him in blood (Statutes of the Realm, ii. 619). He had retained his ecclesiastical preferments, and died in possession of them on 14 Aug. 1499, being buried in St. Paul's Cathedral; his epitaph and a very pessimistic copy of Latin verses are printed by Weever (Funerall Monuments, p. 368; Gough, Sepulchral Mon. ii. 337). Fabyan describes Worsley as ‘a
