Prior, Matthew, 1664-1721

PRIOR, MATTHEW, son of George Prior, St.Stephen’s Alley, Westminster, joiner, and Elizabeth ---; bapt.St.Margaret, Westminster 2 Aug 1664; at school under Busby three years; left after reaching the middle of the third form to assist his uncle Arthur, a vintner, at the Rhenish Wine House, Channel Row, Westminster; returned to the School under the patronage of Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset (qv); KS 1681; St.John’s Coll.Cambridge, adm.pens. 2 Apr 1683, scholar 1684, matr. 1683; BA 1686/7; MA 1700; Keyton Fellow, St. John’s Coll. 5 Apr 1688; author of The Hind and Panther transvers’d to the Story of the Town and Country Mouse, 1687, written as a reply to Dryden; Secretary to Embassy, The Hague 1690-7; employed as Secretary in negotiations resulting in the Treaty of Ryswick 1697; Chief Secretary to Lords Justices of Ireland May 1697 – Nov 1699, but did not execute duties of post; FRS 23 Mar 1697/8; Secretary to Embassy, Paris 1698-9; author, Carmen Saeculare, 1699; Under Secretary of State, Southern Department May 1699 – Jun 1700; a Commissioner of Trade 1700-7; MP East Grinstead Feb – Nov 1701; joined Tories on accession of Queen Anne; a Commissioner of Customs 1712-4; went to Paris to negotiate peace Jul 1711, subsequently acting as Minister Plenipotentiary there; the Treaty of Utrecht, signed 11 Apr 1713, was familiarly known as “Matt’s Peace”; impeached by Walpole and imprisoned 1715-7; his Poems, published by subscription in 1719, earned him 4000 guineas; presented by his patron Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford (qv), with £4000 for the purchase of Down Hall, Essex; possessed aptitude for business and a knowledge of commerce; Thackeray described Prior’s as “amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems” (English Humourists, 1866, 175); d. 18 Sep 1721, buried Westminster Abbey, at his desire “at the feet of Spenser”; DNB.

International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition

Prepared for import into AtoM by Westminster School Archive staff, 2019-2020

Users should note that the information recorded here that is not to be found in the first two volumes of the Record of Old Westminsters and its first Supplement has been assembled from various published and manuscript sources by Hugh Edmund Pagan MA FSA, and all new resulting text is his copyright, © 2014.

The Record of Old Westminsters: A biographical list of all those who are known to have been educated at Westminster School from the earliest times to 1927, Volumes 1 & 2, compiled by G. F. Russell Barker and Alan H. Stenning, London, 1928.