12mo. It is there stated (p. 202), on the evidence of eye-witnesses, that while sitting in court after the other judges had retired, and while the jury were considering their verdict, Ayloffe took off his glove and found his hand and ring covered with blood without any apparent cause, and that, in spite of his endeavours to wipe it away, the blood continued to flow as a miraculous sign of the injustice that polluted the judgment-seat. Some letters that passed between Ayloffe and the lord mayor of London with reference to the appointment of his brother as town clerk, are preserved among the city archives for the years 1580 and 1581 (Remembrancia, pp. 149, 150, 271).
Ayloffe died on 8 Nov. 1585. He married Jane, daughter of Sir Eustace Sulyard, by whom he had three sons. A baronetcy conferred by James I in 1612 upon William, the eldest of them, who had been knighted in 1603, continued in the family till 1781. Sir William, the first baronet, was thrice married, and a large family survived him.
[Foss's Judges of England, v. 445; Wright's Essex, ii. 443-4; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 30; Notes and Queries (2nd series), iii. 376.]
AYLWARD, THEODORE (1730–1801), musician, was born, probably at Chichester, in 1730. of his early life and education nothing is known, though when young he seems to have sung at Drury Lane Theatre. He became a member of the Royal Society of Musicians 9 July 1763 (Records of Roy. Soc. Musicians), and was elected by a unanimous vote into the Madrigal Society 15 Nov. 1769 (Records of Madrigal Soc.). He was appointed organist of St. Lawrence Jewry in 1762, a post he held until 1788. In 1764 he was organist of Oxford Chapel, and from 1768 to 1781 organist of St. Michael's, Cornhill. In 1771 he was appointed professor of music at Gresham College, and in 1788 he succeeded Edward Webb as organist of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. In November 1791 he took the accumulated degrees of Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. at Oxford. He died at Windsor 27 Feb. 1801, and was buried in St. George's Chapel. Aylward published a few songs, duets, glees, and organ pieces; but most of his music is still in manuscript.
[Appendix to Bemrose's Choir Chant Book (1882); Catalogue of Collection of Music School, Oxford; Gent. Mag. 1801.]
AYMER or ÆTHELMÆR (Ethelmar) de Valence, or de Lusignan (d. 1260), bishop of Winchester, was a younger son of Isabella, widow of King John, by her second husband, Hugh X, count of La Marche. Isabella having died in 1246, and the fortunes of their house being depressed in consequence of the failure of their father's rebellion, Guy of Lusignan, William of Valence, and Aymer, who was then in orders, came to England in 1247 to enrich themselves. Henry III received his half brother with great joy. Besides procuring several livings for Aymer, he compelled different bishops and abbots to assign him 'innumerable' pensions, so that his revenues soon equalled those of an archbishopric. Among the various acts of injustice by which the king enriched his brother at this time, the strong pressure put on the abbot of Abingdon to force him to present Aymer to the rich church of St. Helen in that town excited Special indignation. On the resignation of Nicolas, bishop of Durham, in 1249, Henry tried hard to procure the election of his brother. In spite, however, of the king's threats, the chapter rejected Aymer as too young and too ignorant for the office, and Henry was for the time forced to be content with adding the rectory of Wearmouth to his many benefices. So numerous had these and other sources of revenue become, that it was said Aymer might well forget what they were and what each was worth, and he was obliged to appoint a steward to manage his rapidly-increasing wealth. When William, bishop of Winchester died in 1250, Henry determined that his brother should succeed him, and sent two of his chief clerks to persuade the monks to elect him. They refused on account of his youth, his lack of full orders, for he was only an acolyte, and his ignorance. Then the king himself visited the chapter, and commanded them with threats to elect his brother. The monks yielded, for they knew that there was no help to be had from the pope. Very sorrowfully they obeyed the king's command, for the Poitevin thus forced upon them as the head of their noble and wealthy church could npt speak their language, and would, they believed, avoid consecration, for they knew that he only sought the revenues of the see. Aymer was elected on 4 Nov. 1250, and his election was confirmed at Lyons by Innocent IV on 14 Jan. of the following year. On his return to England he gave a splendid banquet at Winchester to the king and queen to celebrate his entrance on his office. Few, if any, of his guests were Englishmen, and this neglect of the native nobility did not escape remark. The papal confirmation was doubly scandalous in the eyes of Englishmen. Not only was Aymer, they said, the first to hold an English bishopric without being a
