WILLIAM RAMSEY.

This William Ramsey was born in Huntingtonshire, a County famous for the richest Benedictines Abbey in England; yet here he would not stay, but went to Crowland, where he prospered so well, that he became Abbot thereof. Bale saith he was a Natural Poet, and therefore no wonder if fault be found in the Feet of his Verses; but by his leave, he was also a good Scholar, and Arithmetician enough to make his Verse run in right Numbers.

This William wrote the Lives of St. Guthlake, St. Neots, St. Edmond the King, and divers others, all in Verse, which no doubt were very acceptable and praise-worthy in those times; but the greatest wonder of him, and which may seem a wonder indeed, was, that being a Poet, he paid the vast Debts of others, even forty thousand Marks for the engagement of his Covent, and all within the compass of eighteen Months, wherein he was Abbot of Crowland. This was a vast Sum in that Age, and would render it altogether incredible for a Poet to do, but that we find he had therein the assistance of King Henry the Second; who, to expiate the Blood of Becket, was contented to be melted into Coyn, and was prodigiously bountiful to many Churches as well as to this. He died about the year 1180.