May 1661, in spite of the vehement efforts 'of the Royalists headed by Sir T. Bridge. This parliament was bent upon the humiliation of the Presbyterians, and Prynne appears in his familiar character of protester. On the 18th of this month he moved that the Engagement, with the Solemn League and Covenant, should be burned by the hangman. About the same time he published a pamphlet advocating the reform of the Prayer Book, while a tract issued on the 15th of July, Sundry reasons against the new intended Bill for governing and reforming Corporations, was declared illegal, false, scandalous and seditious; Prynne being censured, and only escaping punishment by submission. The continued attacks upon the Presbyterians led him to publish his Short, Sober, Pacific Examination of Exuberances in the Common Prayer, as well as the Apology for Tender Consciences touching Not Bowing at the Name of Jesus. In 1662 there appeared also the Brevia parliamentaria rediviva, possibly a portion of the Brief Register of Parliamentary Writs, of which the fourth and concluding volume was published in 1664. During 1663 he served constantly on committees, and was chairman of the committee of supply in July, and again in April 1664.
In the third session Prynne was once more, on the 13th of May 1664, censured for altering the draft of a bill relating to public-houses after commitment, but the house again, upon his submission remitted the offence, and he again appears on the committee of privileges in November and afterwards. In 1665 and 1666 he published the second and first volumes respectively of the Exact Chronological Vindication and Historical Demonstration of the supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction exercised by the English kings from the original planting of Christianity to the death of Richard I. In the latter year especially he was very busy with his pen against the Jesuits. In January 1667 he was one of three appointed to manage the evidence at the hearing of the impeachment of Lord Mordaunt, and in November of the same year spoke in defence of Clarendon, so far as the sale of Dunkirk was concerned, and opposed his banishment, and this appears to have been the last time that he addressed the house. In 1668 was published his Aurum reginae or Records concerning Queen-gold, the Brief Animadversions on Coke’s Institutes in 1669, and the History of King John, Henry III. and Edward I., in which the power of the Crown over ecclesiastics was maintained, in 1670. The date of the Abridgment of the Records of the Tower of London, published 1689, is doubtful, though the preface is dated 1656–16 57. Prynne died unmarried, in his lodgings at Lincoln's Inn, on the 24th of October 1669, and was buried in the walk under the chapel there. He left one portion of his books to Lincoln's Inn and another to Oriel College. His works number about 200 and occupy, together with the replies which they excited, twenty-four columns in the catalogue of the British Museum. Lists of them are given in Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses (ed. P. Bliss), vol. iii., and in Documents relating to the Proceedings against William Prynne.
Bibliography.—Article by C. H. Frith in the Dict. of Nat. Biography; Life of Prynne, in Wood’s Ath. Oxon., ed. by Bliss, iii. 844; Documents relating to the Proceedings against Prynne. ed. by S. R. Gardiner for the Camden Society (1377); Hist. of Swainswick, by R. E. M. Peach; Gardiner’s Hist. of England, of the Civil War and of the Commonwealth; Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. viii. p. 361 (“Letter to Charles II., May 2, 1660”), 9th series, vol. ii. p. 336. (S. R. G.; P. C. Y.)
PRYOR, ROGER ATKINSON (1828–), American jurist
and politician, was born near Petersburg, Virginia, on the 19th of
July 1828. He graduated at Hampden-Sidney College in 1845
and at the law school of the university of Virginia in 1848, and
in 1849 was admitted to the bar, but devoted himself for some
years to journalism. He served as a Democrat in the
National House of Representatives from December 1859 to March 1861,
and was re-elected for the succeeding term, but owing to the
secession of Virginia did not take his seat. He
served in the provisional Confederate congress (1861) and also in the first
regular congress (1862) of the Confederate constitution. He
entered the Confederate army as a colonel, became a brigadier general
(April 16, 1862), and took part in the battles of Williamsburg,
Seven Pines, second Bull Run and Antietam. Owing to a
disagreement with President Davis he resigned his commission
in 1863, but entered General Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry as a private
in August of that year. He was taken prisoner on the 28th of
November 1864, but was released on parole by order of the
president. In 1865 he removed to New York City, where he
practised law. He was judge of the New York court of common
pleas in 1890–1894, and of the New York supreme court in 1894–1899.
His wife, Sara Agnes (Rice) Pryor (b. 1830), published
The Mother of Washington and her Times (1903), Reminiscences of
Peace and War (1904), The Birth of the Nation (1907), and My
Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life (1909).
PRYTANEUM and PRYTANIS (Gr. root προ, first or chief).
1. In general in ancient Greece, each state, city or village possessed its own central hearth and sacred fire, representing the unity and vitality of the community. The fire (cf. at Rome the fire in the temple of Vesta) was kept alight continuously, tended by the king or members of his family (cf. at Rome the Vestal virgins, originally perhaps the daughters of the king). The building in which this fire was kept was the Prytaneum, and the chieftain (the king or prytanis) probably made it his residence. The word Prytanis (plur. Prytaneis) is generally applied specially to those who, after the abolition of absolute monarchy, held the chief office in the state. Rulers of this name are found at Rhodes as late as the 1st century B.C. The Prytaneum was regarded as the religious and political centre of the community and was thus the nucleus of all government, and the official “ home ” of the whole people. When members of the state went forth to found a new colony they took with them a brand from the Prytaneum altar to kindle the new fire in the colony;[1] the fatherless daughters of Aristides, who were regarded as children of the state at Athens, were married from the Prytaneum as from their home; Thucydides informs us (ii. 15) that in the Synoecism of Theseus (see Athens) the Prytanea of all the separate communities were joined in the central Prytaneum of Athens as a symbol of the union; foreign ambassadors and citizens who had deserved especially well of the state were entertained in the Prytaneum as public guests. In Achaea, this central hall was called the Leïton (town-hall), and a similar building is known to have existed at Elis. This site of the Prytaneum at Athens cannot be definitely fixed; it is generally supposed that in the course of time several buildings bore the name. The Prytaneum, mentioned by Pausanias, and probably the original centre of the ancient city, was situated somewhere east of the northern cliff of the Acropolis. Hence the frequent confusion with the Tholos which was near the council chamber and was the residence of the Prytaneis (see below) of the council. Curtius places the original Prytaneum south of the Acropolis in the Old Agora, speaks of a second identical with the Tholos in the Cerameicus, and regards that of Pausanius as a building of Roman times (Stadtgeschichte, p. 302). Wachsmuth holds the former view and regards the Tholos as merely a dining-room for the Prytaneis in the old democratic period. Many authorities hold that the original Prytaneum of the Cecropian city must have been on the Acropolis. From Aristotle's Constitution of Athens (ch. 3) we know that the Prytaneum was the official residence of the Archons, but, when the new Agora was constructed (by Peisistratus?), they took their meals in the Thesmotheteum for the sake of convenience. There was also a court of justice called the court of the Prytaneum; all that is known of this court is that it tried murderers who could not befound, and inanimate objects which had caused death. Judging from its rather fanciful functions and from its name, it is probably a relic of the pre-historic jurisdiction of the patriarch-king.
2. For the Pryaneis of the Boulē and of the Naucraries, see Boulē and Naucracry.
3. Prytaneia were court-fees paid when the prosecutor was claiming a part of the penalty which the defendant would be called upon to pay if he lost.
4. Prytanis was also the name of a legendary king of Sparta of the Eurypontid or Proclid line. He was the son of Eurypon and fourth in descent from Procles.
- ↑ Cf. Indian tribes of North America.
