Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Senhouse, William
SENHOUSE or SEVER, WILLIAM (d. 1505), bishop of Durham, whose name appears as Senhouse, Senews, Senuz, Sever, and Siveyer, was born at Shincliffe, a village close to Durham. He is said to have been related to, as he has often been confused with, Henry Sever [q. v.]; but more probably he was connected with the Senhouse family of Cumberland, a later member of which, Richard Senhouse [q. v.], became, like William, bishop of Carlisle. William entered the Benedictine order, and is said by Wood to have been educated either in Gloucester College or Durham College, Oxford. On 11 March 1467–8 he was ordained subdeacon in St. Mary's Abbey, York, where he became abbot in 1485. In 1495 he was elected bishop of Carlisle, the temporalities being restored to him on 11 Dec.; he was consecrated in the following year. In 1496 he was one of the commissioners sent to Scotland to negotiate the marriage of Henry VII's daughter Margaret with James IV, and he helped to arrange the treaty that was signed in the following year. In 1499 he was appointed one of the conservators of the truce between the two kingdoms (cf. Cal. Hatfield MSS. i. 3). In 1502 he was translated to Durham, resigning the abbey of St. Mary, which he had hitherto held. He died in 1505, and was buried at St. Mary's Abbey, York.
[Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglicanæ, iii. 240, 292; Godwin, De Præsulibus, ed. Richardson; Letters and Papers ill. the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII (Rolls Ser.), ii. 283; Hutchinson's Cumberland, ii. 268, 627; Surtees's Hist. Durham, iv. 106; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 695; Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.), pts. iii and iv. passim; Brodrick's Memorials of Merton Coll. p. 229; Dodd's Church Hist.]