During this time he was appointed Latin Secretary to the King, but on the death of that Prince, he losthis place and pension. Ascham had the singular good fortune, though known to be a Protestant, to escape the anger of Queen Mary, and even enjoyed the favour of the Princess, who appointed him her secretary. On the accession of Elizabeth, he was continued in his office, and farther made her private tutor in the learned languages. When she heard of his death, that economical Princess exclaimed,. that she would rather have lost ten thousand pounds. The only preferment he ever obtained was a prebend in the cathedral at York. His most esteemed work is entitled, "The Schoolmaster": his LatinEpistles have been frequently printed, and are admired by all good judges of elegant composition. His talents were so blended with activity, that he wrote for Mary, in the space of 3 days, letters to 47 Princes, the meanest of whom was a Cardinal. He died at London, 30th Dec. 1568. His attachment to dice and cock-fightág kept him miserably poor. The celebrated Buchanan lamented his death in the following lines :---* Aschamum extinctum patriæ, Graiæq; Camœnæ, Adams's Great Britain. Biog. Brit Epigr. Lib. If Anthony Ascham, probably of the same family, was born at Burniston, in this neighbourhood; and was presented to that living by Edward VI. He published several tracts on astrology, and a book entitled " A lyttel Herbal of the properties of Herbs, &c." 1550.* At Newsham, in this parish, was born in 1642 the learned Dr. George Hickes. He descended from the Hickes's of Nunnington, in Yorkshire, formerly a considerable family; went to the grammar school at Northallerton, under Mr Thomas Smelt, (when Mr Thomas Rymer, Historiographer Royal, and author of" Fœdera," &c. was his school-fellow) whence he removed to St. John's College, Oxford, In 1683 he was made Dean of Worcester, of which he was deprived at the Revolution for refusing the Qaths. King James had made him suffragan Bishop of Thetford: He wrote several theological treatises and sermons, close and argumentative, and full of excellent learning well applied; but his chief works are, "Linguarum veterum Septentrionalium Thesausus, fol;" and "Gramnatica Anglo-Saxonica, et Moso-Gothica," 4to. He died in 1715.† John Hickes, brother of the above, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was first Minister of Stoke Damarel, Devonshire; which living being in * Biog. Dist. + Biog. Dict. the gift of the crown, he was obliged to quit at the Restoration; when he removed to Saltash, in Cornwall, where he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662. He was a learned and pious man, but wanting in discretion. This may account for his unhappily being drawn in to join the Duke of Monmouth's Army, in 1685, which brought him to a tragical end. With a multitude of others, he suffered death at the Bloody Assizes in Judge Jefferies's "campaign" in the West, as the King was pleased to call it. He published a pamphlet, entitled, "A sad Narrative of the Oppression of many honest People in Devon, &c." and "A Discourse of the Excellency of the heavenly Substance." He drew up an interesting narrative of his whole conduct respecting the affair which prov◄ ed so fatal to him; which, with a speech which he delivered at the time of his execution, may be seen at length in Turner's "History of Remarkable Providences," ch. 143.*. The Church of Kirby Wiske and its dependent chapels, were granted by William de Kirby, to the priory of Guisborough; but were afterwards given up for some lands at Alesby, in Lincolnshire.t The church is ancient and handsome, but possesses no very remarkable objects of attention, save a *Nonconf. Mem. Young's Whitby, 419. noble Gothic Canopy in the North Wall of the Chancel, over a tomb without effigy or inscription. piscina and three stalls grace the opposite side. The roof of the building was renewed in the year 1811, when some new windows were inserted in the South Aisle. The taste of the architect lowered the East Window, and taking off the mullions and the pointed arch, left it a strange square hole rather than a window. There are yet some escutcheons of painted glass in this "Wyde wyndowe ywrought ywritten ful thikke, Shynen with shapen shaldes to shewen aboute." The clock is reported to have come from the castle of Brackenburgh. The North Door is a venerable remain of antique architecture; apparently more ancient than the door of either Sowerby or Thornton-le-Street Churches, which we have before noticed. The shafts of the columns have been removed, but their capitals remain, with the curiously carved arch, in the Saxon stile. Different antiquities have sometimes been discovered in the neighbourhood of Kirby. Some labourers cutting a drain through some embankments, resembling the foundations of an extensive building, or a Roman Encampment, laid bare a pavement of some sort; which has long since been . destroyed, and of which the villagers can give no intelligible account. A silver handled weapon, with some ancient coins, were also discovered. The Rev. William Leapor, M. A., rector of Kirby Wiske, published a sermon, " On the Licentiousness of the Tongue," in 1764. BRACKENBURGH, on the opposite bank of the Wiske, was anciently a castle belonging to the family of Lascelles. Camden notices it as " Brakenbak, belonging to the truly ancient and famous family of Lascelles. Roger de Lascelles was summoned to parliament amongst the barons, in the 22 Edward I. and following year. The castle has disappeared. Till the erection of the present farm house, which occupies its site, a good room yet remained; but which modern improvements have destroyed. Thus, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, "Time antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things." SION-HILL is in this parish. Half a mile to the W. of Kirby Wiske, stands Dannoty Hall, formerly the residence of a man of that name, who is said to have been a counterfeiter of the current coin of the realm. He is said to have had apartments in this house, fitted up in a very T |