Nicholas Harpsfield
Nicholas Harpsfield (1519–1575) was an English historian and a Roman Catholic apologist and priest under Henry VIII, whose policies he opposed. Origins Born in 1519 in the parish of St Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street, in the City of London, he was the younger brother of John Harpsfield, the two being sons of John Harpsfield, a gentleman and a mercer, and his wife whose name is unknown. His paternal grandparents were Nicholas Harpsfield, a Clerk of the Signet, and his wife Agnes Norton. His uncle Nicholas Harpsfield, who had been educated at Winchester College and at New College, Oxford, and then at the University of Bologna, was a doctor of canon law and an official of the Archdeacon of Winchester. Early life and exile Harpsfield was educated at Winchester College and studied canon and civil law in New College, Oxford, receiving a BCL in 1543. In Oxford, he became connected to the circle of Thomas More, of whom he later wrote a biography, which he dedicated to William Roper in gratitude for his patronage. With the more aggressive religious policies of the English Reformation following the accession of Edward VI in 1547, he left England in 1550 to pursue his