AUDLEY, or Audeley, SIR JAMES (c. 1316–1386), one of the original knights, or founders, of the order of the Garter, was the eldest son of Sir James Audley of Stratton Audley in Oxfordshire. When the order of the Garter was founded, he was instituted as one of the first founders, and his stall in St George’s chapel, Windsor, was the eleventh on the side of Edward, the Black Prince. He appears to have served in France in 1346, and in August 1350 took part in the naval fight off Sluys. When hostilities were renewed between England and France in 1354 Sir James was in constant attendance upon the Black Prince, and earned a great reputation for valour. At the battle of Poitiers on the 19th of September 1356 he took his stand in front of the English army, and after fighting for a long time was severely wounded and carried from the fight. After the victory, the prince inquired for Sir James, who was brought to the royal tent, where Edward told him he had been the bravest knight on his side, and granted him an annuity of five hundred marks. Sir James made over this gift to the four esquires who had attended him during the battle, and received from the prince a further pension of six hundred marks. In 1359 he was one of the leaders of an expedition into France, in 1360 he took the fortress of Chaven in Brittany, and was present at Calais when peace was made between England and France in October 1360. He was afterwards governor of Aquitaine and great seneschal of Poitou, and took part in the capture of the town of La Roche-sur-Yon by Edmund, earl of Cambridge. He died in 1386 at Fontenay-le-Comte, where he had gone to reside, and was buried at Poitiers.
See Jean Froissart, Chroniques, translated by T. Johnes (Hafod, 1810); G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1841).
AUDLEY, THOMAS AUDLEY, Baron (c. 1488–1544), lord chancellor of England, whose parentage is unknown, is believed to have studied at Buckingham College, Cambridge. He was educated for the law, entered the Middle Temple (becoming autumn reader in 1526), was town clerk of Colchester, and was on the commission of the peace for Essex in 1521. In 1523 he was returned to parliament for Essex, and represented this constituency in subsequent parliaments. In 1527 he was groom of the chamber, and became a member of Wolsey’s household. On the fall of the latter in 1529, he was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and the same year speaker of the House of Commons, presiding over the famous assembly styled the Black or Long Parliament of the Reformation, which abolished the papal jurisdiction. The same year he headed a deputation of the Commons to the king to complain of Bishop Fisher’s speech against their proceedings. He interpreted the king’s “moral” scruples to parliament concerning his marriage with Catherine, and made himself the instrument of the king in the attack upon the clergy and the preparation of the act of supremacy. In 1531 he had been made a serjeant-at-law and king’s serjeant; and on the 20th of May 1532 he was knighted, and succeeded Sir Thomas More as lord keeper of the great seal, being appointed lord chancellor on the 26th of January 1533. He supported the king’s divorce from Catherine and the marriage with Anne Boleyn; and presided at the trial of Fisher and More in 1535, at which his conduct and evident intention to secure a conviction has been generally censured. Next year he tried Anne Boleyn and her lovers, was present on the scaffold at the unfortunate queen’s execution, and recommended to parliament the new act of succession. In 1537 he condemned to death as traitors the Lincolnshire and the Yorkshire rebels. On the 29th of November 1538 he was created Baron Audley of Walden; and soon afterwards presided as lord steward at the trials of Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, and of the unfortunate marquess of Exeter. In 1539, though inclining himself to the Reformation, he made himself the king’s instrument in enforcing religious conformity, and in the passing of the Six Articles Act. On the 24th of April 1540 he was made a knight of the Garter, and subsequently managed the attainder of Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, and the dissolution of Henry’s marriage with Anne of Cleves. In 1542 he warmly supported the privileges of the Commons in the case of George Ferrers, member for Plymouth, arrested and imprisoned in London, but his conduct was inspired as usual by subservience to the court, which desired to secure a subsidy, and his opinion that the arrest was a flagrant contempt has been questioned by good authority. He resigned the great seal on the 21st of April 1544, and died on the 30th, being buried at Saffron Walden, where he had prepared for himself a splendid tomb. He received several grants of monastic estates, including the priory of Christ Church in London and the abbey of Walden in Essex, where his grandson, Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, built Audley End, doubtless named after him. In 1542 he re-endowed and re-established Buckingham College, Cambridge, under the new name of St Mary Magdalene, and ordained in the statutes that his heirs, “the possessors of the late monastery of Walden,” should be visitors of the college in perpetuum. A Book of Orders for the Warre both by Sea and Land (Harleian MS. 297, f. 144) is attributed to his authorship. He married (1) Christina, daughter of Sir Thomas Barnardiston, and (2) Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Grey, marquess of Dorset, by whom he had two daughters. His barony became extinct at his death.
AUDOUIN, JEAN VICTOR (1797–1841), French naturalist, was born at Paris on the 27th of April 1797. He began the study of law, but was diverted from it by his strong predilection for natural history, and entered the medical profession. In 1824 he was appointed assistant to P. A. Latreille (1762–1833) in the entomological chair at the Paris museum of natural history, and succeeded him in 1833. In 1838 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. He died in Paris on the 9th of November 1841. His principal work, Histoire des insectes nuisibles à la vigne (1842), was completed after his death by Henry Milne-Edwards and Émile Blanchard. His papers mostly appeared in the Annales des sciences naturelles, which, with A. T. Brongniart and J. B. A. Dumas, he founded in 1824, and in the proceedings of the Société Entomologique de France, of which he was one of the founders in 1832.
AUDRAN, the name of a family of French artists and engravers. The first who devoted himself to the art of engraving was Claude Audran, born 1597, and the last was Benoit, Claude’s great-grandson, who died in 1772. The two most distinguished members of the family are Gérard and Jean.
Gérard, or Girard, Audran, the most celebrated French engraver, was the third son of Claude Audran, and was born at Lyons in 1640. He was taught the first principles of design and engraving by his father; and, following the example of his brother, went to Paris to perfect himself in his art. He there, in 1666, engraved for Le Brun “Constantine’s Battle with Maxentius,” his “Triumph,” and the “Stoning of Stephen,” which gave great satisfaction to the painter, and placed Audran in the very first rank of engravers at Paris. Next year he set out for Rome, where he resided three years, and engraved several fine plates. That great patron of the arts, J. B. Colbert, was so struck with the beauty of Audran’s works, that he persuaded Louis XIV. to recall him to Paris. On his return he applied himself assiduously to engraving, and was appointed engraver to the king, from whom he received great encouragement. In the year 1681 he was admitted to the council of the Royal Academy. He died at Paris in 1703. His engravings of Le Brun’s “Battles of Alexander” are regarded as the best of his numerous works. “He was,” says the Abbé Fontenay, “the most celebrated engraver that ever existed in the historical line. We have several subjects, which he engraved from his own designs, that manifested as much taste as character and facility. But in the ‘Battles of Alexander’ he surpassed even the expectations of Le Brun himself.” Gérard published in 1683 a work entitled Les Proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les plus belles figures de l’antiquité.
Jean Audran, nephew of Gérard, was born at Lyons in 1667. After having received instructions from his father, he went to Paris to perfect himself in the art of engraving under his uncle, next to whom he was the most distinguished member of his family. At the age of twenty his genius began to display itself in a surprising manner; and his subsequent success was such, that
