Richard Whitford

Richard Whitford (or Whytford) was an English (or Welsh) Catholic priest known as an author of many devotional works.
Life.
He obtained his name probably from Whitford, near Holywell, Flint, where his uncle, Richard Whitford, possessed property. He studied at Oxford, but was elected a fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, from 1495 to 1504. He was given leave of absence by his college for five years in 1496-7 that he might attend William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy, as chaplain and confessor, on the continent. At Paris he met and befriended Erasmus, Lord Mountjoy's tutor. In 1498 tutor, chaplain, and pupil returned to England; and perhaps at this time Whitford visited Oxford with Erasmus.
Soon afterwards he became chaplain to Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester; and William Roper, in his "Life of More", reports that in 1504 he encouraged Thomas More in his resistance to Henry VII's exactions. A speech against Foxe ascribed to Whitford may be apocryphal, but the closeness of his friendship with More is attested by a letter written from 'the country,' 1 May 1506, by Erasmus during his second visit to England. He sends Whitford a Latin declamation composed against the 'Pro Tyrannicida' of Lucian. This Whitford is to compare with a similar effort of More's, and to decide which is better. The letter contains an enthusiastic estimate of More's abilities. It states that Whitford used to affirm Erasmus and More to be 'so alike in wit, manners, affections, and pursuits, that no pair of twins could be found more so.'
Whitford, like his uncle, entered the Brigittine house at Isleworth, Middlesex, known as Syon Monastery (later as Syon House). Anthony Wood says the uncle gave large benefactions to the convent, which was a double one for nuns; and monks. The nephew is conjectured to have entered about 1507, at which time he composed his first devotional treatise by request of the abbess for the use of the nuns. The rest of his life was spent in the composition and compilation of similar works, which had a vogue beyond the convent walls. In 1530, Whitford produced a translation of "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis.
In 1535 Thomas Bedyll visited Syon to obtain from the monks and nuns an acknowledgment of the king's supremacy. His letters to Thomas Cromwell show that Whitford's firmness was conspicuous. He resisted Bedyll with constancy and courage. At the eventual dissolution of the monastery he obtained a pension and an asylum for the rest of his days in the London house of the Barons Mountjoy.
Works.
He was author of:
Certain 'Solitary Meditations' are also ascribed to Whitford by Thomas Tanner, without any date or comment.