William Patten (historian)

William Patten ("fl". 1548-1580) was a historian or chronicler and teller of the English exchequer.

Early life

Patten was the eldest son and third child of Richard Patten ("d". 1536), a clothworker of London. The father was a son of Richard Patten of Boslow, Derbyshire, and a nephew of William Patten, "alias" Waynflete, bishop of Winchester. William’s mother, Grace, daughter of Baskerville, died before her husband [Gregson, Matthew, ": Relative to the History and Antiquities of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster", (1817) pp. 190-4] ["Chetham Soc. Publ." lxxxviii. 229).]

Chronicling expedition

Patten apparently accompanied the expedition into Scotland in 1548, and the Earl of Warwick, lieutenant of the host, made him ‘one of the judges of the Marshelsey.’ William Cecil went with him, and both, according to Patten, took notes day by day. Patten prepared an account of the expedition for publication, and obtained some aid from Cecil’s diary. The work appeared as "The Expedicion in Scotland of the moth woorthely fortunate Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, uncle unto our most noble Sovereign Lord ye kinges maiestie, Edward the VI, goovernour of hys highness persone, and protectour of hys grace realmes, dominions, and subjects: made in the first yere of his maiesties most prosperous reign, and set out by way of diarie by W. Patten, Londoner. Imprinted in London the last day of June, in the 2nd year of the reign of Edward VI." It was reprinted in Dalzell’s "Fragments of Scottish History," Edinburgh, 1798, and in Arber’s ‘English Garner,’ iii. 51-155, 1880. Patten’s narrative was largely quoted by Raphael Holinshed and was followed in Sir John Hayward’s "Life and Reign of Edward VI" ["Lit. Remains of Edward VI", Roxburghe Club, pp. 215 seq.] [Strype, "Eccl. Mem." II ii. 180]

In 1550 ‘William Patten, Esq.’ was granted by Thomas Penny, prebendary of St. Paul’s, the lease of the manor of Stoke Newington, and in 1565 the lease was renewed for ninety-nine years, to commence from Michaelmas 1576, at 19 [?] per annum. This property Patten assigned about 1571 to John Dudley. cite book |title=The History and Antiquities of the parish of Stoke Newington in the County of Middlesex |last=Robinson |first=William |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1842 |publisher=John Bowyer Nichols and son |location=London |accessdate=2008-08-25 |isbn= |pages= |url=http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&id=_gYNAAAAYAAJ p. 28, full download available via Google Books] [Ellis, William, "The Campagna of London", (1791) p. 109] . While lord of the manor of Stoke Newington Patten repaired the parish church which was in a ruinous state (1563) [Ellis, William, "The Campagna of London", (1791) p. 199] Patten subsequently became one of the tellers of the receipt of the queen’s exchequer at Westminster, receiver-general of her revenues in the county of York custumer of London outward, and a justice of peace for Middlesex. ["State Papers" Dom. Eliz. xi. 101, 3 Jun 1563] . On 19 Nov, 1580 ["State Papers" Dom. Eliz. cxliv. 32] he wrote to inform Francis Walsingham as to the farming of the royal mines.

Family

By his wife Anne, daughter of one of the heiresses of Richard Johnson of Boston, Lincolnshire, Patten had seven children. An engraving of Patten, by J. Mills, is in Robinson’s "Stoke Newington", p. 28 (see references).

References

Authorities quoted

* Strype’s "Annals", II. i. 744
* "Eccl. Mem." II. ii. 280
* Tanner, Thomas, "Bibliotheca britannico-hibernica" (1748)
* Information from the Rev. Prebendary Shelford, formerly rector of Stoke Newington. (1900)