Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/James, Francis
JAMES, FRANCIS (1581–1621), Latin poet, born in 1581, was a native of Newport, Isle of Wight, and near kinsman of Thomas James (1573?–1629) [q. v.] He was a queen's scholar at Westminster School, and was elected in 1598 to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1602, M.A. 1605, B.D. 1612, and D.D. in 1614 (Oxf. Univ. Reg. ii. i. 210, ii. 231, iii. 235). He distinguished himself as a writer of Latin verse. A Latin poem by him appears in the university collection issued on James I's visit to Christ Church in 1605, and he published in 1612 ‘Threnodia Henricianarum Exequiarum, sive Panolethria Anglicana et Apotheosis Henrici Ducis Glocestrensis,’ &c. He was appointed preacher or reader at the Savoy Chapel, London, and in 1616 was made by King James rector of St. Matthew's, Friday Street. Wood states that he died in 1621, and was buried at Ewhurst, Surrey.
[Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 359; Welch's Alumni Westmonast. p. 67; W. Hazlitt's Collections and Notes, 1867–76, p. 234; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 475.]