Matthew Robinson (priest)

When, in 1643, his father was killed fighting for the Parliament in the Civil War, Matthew was recommended as page to Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Robinson now offered his services to the governor of the town, and until the dispersal of the King's forces undertook military duty every night.

After studying medicine "not two full years", he was persuaded by his mother to accept presentation to the family living of Burneston, Yorkshire.

Meanwhile his medical advice was in great request, and Sir Joseph Cradock, the commissary of the archdeaconry of Richmond, procured him a license to practise as a physician.

[2] Both Robinson and Cawdry had scruples about the Act of Uniformity, which their bishop, Brian Walton of Chester, took great pains to satisfy.

In September 1682 he resigned the living of Burneston in favour of his nephew, and removed to Ripley, where, for two years, he managed Lady Ingleby's estates.

He bred the best horses in the north of England, and, while staying with his brother Leonard in London, was summoned to Whitehall by Charles II for consultation respecting a charger which Monmouth afterwards rode at Bothwell-Brigg.

He married, on 12 October 1657, Jane, daughter of Mark Pickering of Ackworth, a descendant of Archbishop Tobie Matthew, but had no children.

The Life of Matthew Robinson was printed in 1856 by Professor Mayor in Part II of Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century, from a manuscript in St. John's College Library, with numerous notes, appendix, and indices.