‘Mesolabium Architectonicum,’ 1631 (repr. 1639). Bedwell also translated Salingnac's ‘Arithmetic,’ and his enlarged version of Ramus's ‘Way to Geometry’ was posthumously published in 1636. From this book it appears that he was a personal friend of John Greaves and H. Briggs. After his death, ‘his library being sold into Little Britain,’ Lilly, the astrologer, tells us, ‘I bought amongs them my choicest books of astronomy.’ Amidst these studies he found time to publish in 1631 ‘A Survey of Tottenham,’ in which the well-known burlesque poem, the ‘Turnament of Tottenham,’ was first published from a manuscript now in the university library at Cambridge. Bedwell died in 1632. He left to his university his manuscript lexicon, together with a fount of Arabic type to print it (Geo. Richter, Ep. Sel. 485). This was never done, but by a grace of 25 June 1658 it was lent to E. Castell and R. Clark. Castell used the manuscript largely in his great ‘Lexicon Heptaglotton,’ and in this way Bedwell has a lasting place in the history of Arabic scholarship. His most famous personal disciple was Edward Pocock, for Erpenius can hardly be called Bedwell's pupil, but rather, as Castell puts it (Præf. Lex.), his partner in opening Arabic literature. Bedwell's manuscript lexicon consists of seven volumes folio, with two small quartos containing his final revision of the initials alef and veit. It includes Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic words, and in the original draught is entirely gathered from the author's own reading. For the Arabic, which is much the most important feature in the work, he uses the Koran (in manuscript), the Arabic versions of the Bible (some of which had been printed), and the publications of the Italian press—notably Avicenna and Nāsir-ed-Dīn's ‘Euclid.’ The connection between Arabic and mathematics was then very close; astronomers especially looked to the Arabs for valuable aid, as appears in Twells's ‘Life of Pocock,’ and probably enough it was through mathematics and astrology (for he quotes Haly) that Bedwell was first led to Arabic studies. After the seven folios were written out, Bedwell must have got a copy of the great native lexicon, the ‘Kāmūs,’ extracts from which are written all over the margin and incorporated in the revised volumes.
[Isaacson's Life of Andrewes; Casaubon's Epistolæ (passim); Twells's Life of Pocock; Vossius's Funeral Oration on Erpenius; Prefaces and other notices in Bedwell's works; Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 346, 755.]
BEDYLL, THOMAS (d. 1537), clerk of the privy council, was educated at New College, Oxford, and took the degree of B.C.L. on 5 Nov. 1508. In 1520 he was acting as secretary to William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, whom he served in that capacity till the archbishop's death in August 1532. Within a month afterwards the king (Henry VIII) took him into his service as one of the royal chaplains, and on 14 Oct. he signs a letter to the king as clerk of the council, a post to which he had quite recently been appointed. His former master, the archbishop, speaks of his ‘approved fidelity and virtue,’ and he soon was equally high in the favour of Cromwell and Cranmer, whose views on ecclesiastical polity he thoroughly adopted. His first public employments were in connection with Henry's divorce from Katharine of Arragon. After being sent to Oxford to obtain opinions from the university in the king's favour, he accompanied Cranmer to Dunstable as one of the counsel on the king's side, when the archbishop pronounced the final sentence of nullity of marriage. Several letters from him are extant recording the course of the trial and the pronunciation of the sentence, in the drawing up of which he had some share. In the next two years (1534 and 1535) he was engaged in endeavouring to obtain the oaths of the inmates of several religious houses to the royal supremacy; in conducting as one of the king's council the examination of Bishop Fisher and of Sir Thomas More, when tried for treason for refusing the oath; and in assessing the values of ecclesiastical benefices in England. When the smaller monasteries were suppressed by act of parliament in 1536, Bedyll visited many of them in the neighbourhood of London to obtain the surrenders of the houses; and about the same time presided over a commission appointed to examine papal bulls and briefs conferring privileges on churches and dignities in England, with a view to their confirmation or abolition (Pat. 28 Hen. VIII. p. 1, m. 8). The ‘book’ that was circulated throughout England as a basis for sermons on the futility of the pope's claims to authority in England, was revised and corrected by him. He has left no literary remains, but many of his letters are extant in the Public Record Office and among the Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum. He died in the beginning of September 1537, his death being mentioned in a letter from Richard Cromwell to his uncle on 5 Sept.
The following is a list of his ecclesiastical benefices:—Rectory of Halton, Bucks, 24 Aug. 1512; chapels of Bockyngfold and Newstede, Cant. dioc. 1 March 1514; Sandhurst, Kent, 1516; East Peckham, Kent,
