Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pory, John (d.1573?)
PORY, JOHN (d. 1573?), master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, born at Thrapstone, Northamptonshire, was admitted to Corpus Christi College in 1520, and graduated B.A. in 1523–4, M.A. in 1527, B.D. in 1535, and D.D. in 1557. He was elected about 1534 fellow of Corpus and also of the college of St. John the Baptist at Stoke-by-Clare, Suffolk, where Matthew Parker [q. v.], to whose friendship Pory owed his preferments, was dean. In 1557 Pory was elected master of Corpus, and on 13 Dec. of the year following he became vice-chancellor of the university.
From 1555 to 1564 Pory was rector of Bunwell, Norfolk; from 1555 or 1556 till 1561 vicar of St. Stephen's, Norwich; from 1558 to 1569 rector of Landbeach, Cambridgeshire; from 21 Dec. 1559–60 prebendary of Ely; from 19 Aug. 1560 rector of Pulham St. Mary, Norfolk; and from 1 May 1564 prebendary of Canterbury, resigning this prebend in 1567 for the seventh stall at Westminster (Le Neve, i. 53, iii. 355).
On the visit of the queen to Cambridge in August 1564 he was one of the four senior doctors who held the canopy over her as she entered King's College Chapel (Nichols, Progresses of Eliz. i. 163). He also took part in the divinity act held before the queen on the thesis ‘major est scripturæ quam ecclesiæ auctoritas.’ He afterwards attended Elizabeth when she visited Oxford in 1566, and was incorporated there. During his mastership a new library was fitted up in the college, the north side of which was reserved for the manuscripts which Archbishop Parker was intending to present. Pory persuaded the archbishop to increase the endowments of his old college, and showed anxiety to turn them to a useful purpose. But he declined to resign his mastership when disabled by failing health from performing his duties, and Parker instigated complaints against him before the ecclesiastical commissioners. Much pressure was needed before Pory consented to withdraw. Thomas Aldrich was appointed master of Corpus on 3 Feb. 1569–70 (Parker Corresp. p. 356). Pory gave up all his preferments about the same time, and is held to have died in 1573. One John Pory acted as one of the two conductor yeomen at Parker's funeral on 6 June 1575.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Bentham's Hist. and Antiq. of Ely, p. 244; Strype's Works, index; Le Neve; Rymer's Fœdera, vol. xv.; Symon Gunton's Hist. of Church of Peterborough; Masters's Hist. of Corpus Christi; Wood's Fasti, i. 175; Blomefield's Norfolk; Willis's Survey of Cath. ii. 378; State Papers, Dom. Eliz. ubi supra; Nichols's Progresses of Eliz. i. 163; Cole MSS. 5813 f. 60, 5807 f. 33, 5843 f. 441; Lansdowne, 12, No. 35, fol. 12, and 981, fol. 58; Willis and Clark's Arch. Hist. of C. i. 253, 255, 267.]