Thomas Penketh O.S.A. (also called Penker or Penkyer), born in Warrington, was the closest to an internationally celebrated scholar that the University of Cambridge had produced up to the end of the fifteenth century.
A indisputable distinction for Thomas Penketh was that of being the only Augustinian named in a play by William Shakespeare.
Born at Penketh, Lancashire, like numerous noblemen in the area over many years, he joined the Augustinian Priory at Warrington, and was sent to Austin Friars in Oxford for his theological education.
For reasons unknown, he then transferred to the Austin Friars at the University of Cambridge to obtain his doctorate in 1468-69.
In 1474 he won a public chair of theology at Padua, which then was the most famous university in Christendom.
At Padua he lectured on metaphysics and edited some of the writings of John Duns Scotus (copies of which books still exist).
He returned to England in 1477. Soon after that date, John Lettou, a printer in
London, produced two small books edited by Thomas Penketh: Questiones Antonii Andreae super duodecim libros metaphisice and Expositiones super Psalterium. Thomas had returned to Oxford in 1477, where he also taught theology, and was probably in Oxford when these books were being printed in
London.
He was Provincial of the English Province of the Order of Saint Augustine (Austin Friars) in 1480-1487.
This second term of Provincial office was stormy because he let himself be involved in the politics of the ambitious king of the day. In 1484 he was invited to take part in the series of prestigious Easter Week sermons in London.
These sermons were held each year at a number of churches such as St Paul’s Cathedral and St Mary’s Hospital. They were attended by the Mayor of London (Sir Edmund Shaw), the aldermen and all leading citizens, and drew large crowds.
Penketh preached at St Mary’s Hospital, Bishopsgate, and caused controversy by preaching in support of the claim of Richard III for the English throne. Penketh failed to complete the sermon because of a throat ailment.
Penketh was part of a conspiracy with Sir Edmund Shaw to legitimise the Crown for Richard, the highly ambitious Duke of Gloucester, who in the previous year had became King Richard III.
One contemporary historical commentator overstated the consequences of Penketh’s sermon (which, as it happened, he was unable to complete because of a throat ailment): “By bastardizing the issue of King Edward IV, he stained his former life and disgraced his Order.”
Whether or not in the long term there was in fact any stain or disgrace for Penketh, King Richard III had less than a year previously interrupted the expected line of succession to succeed his late brother, King Edward IV, on 6th July 1483.
For his involvement Penketh is mentioned by William Shakespeare in his drama, Richard III, although his involvement in royal politics was not as significant as Shakespeare intimates.
Four years after Penketh's death, Shakespeare included the name of Thomas Penketh (Penker) in Richard III (Act III, Scene 6):
"Ah, Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw;
Go thou to Friar Penker, bid them both
Meet me within this hour at Baynard'e Castle."
Penketh died on 20th May 1487 before the completion of his third term as Provincial, and was buried at Austin Friars, London.
King Henry VII, a son of Edward IV whom Richard III had beat to the throne, held no animosity to the Austin Friars because of the late Thomas Penketh’s previous support of Richard III.
Henry VII stayed at the Austin Friars Priory at Lynn in 1498, and made the French Augustinian, Bernard Andre O.S.A., tutor to Prince Edward and appointed him poet laureate. Andre retained the latter position during the early reign of Henry VIII, and was reputed to have ghost written In Defence of the Seven Sacraments for Henry VIII (although Sir John Fisher more probably did so).
ID0869
|
