William Patten (historian)

Whereby, we both (not being bound so straightly, in days of travel, to the order of march; nor otherwhile, but when we sat in Court, to any great affairs) had liberty to ride to see the things that were done, and leisure to note occurrences that came.

Marry, since my coming home, indeed, his gentleness being such as to communicate his notes to me, I have, I confess, been thereby, both much a certained [confirmed] in many things I doubted, and somewhat remembered [put in mind] of that which else I might hap to have forgotten.

[8]Patten published his account 'Out of the Parsonage of Saint Mary's Hill, in London, this 28 January 1548' under the title The expedicion into Scotla[n]de of the most woorthely fortunate prince Edward, duke of Soomerset.

[9] Patten's narrative of the expedition was largely quoted by Holinshed and was followed by Sir John Hayward in The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI (1630).

In 1563 Patten repaired the manor house as well as the Church of St Mary, Stoke Newington, adding a vestry, aisle, private chapel and schoolhouse.

Whearin the Hebru, Challdian, Arabian, Phenician, Syrian, Persian, Greek and Latin names … in the holly Byble … ar set, and turned into oour English toong (1575).

[20] Patten also eulogised two former patrons, Henry, Earl of Arundel, whom he had served in France, in a broadside entitled A Moorning Diti (1580),[21] and Sir William Winter, in In mortem W. Wynter (1589).

[23] Authorship of the Langham letter, a lively description of the Earl of Leicester's entertainment of Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle in July 1575, has also been attributed to Patten.

John Stow described him as 'a learned Gentleman and grave citizen', and records that Patten 'exhibited a Booke to the Mayor and communalitie' of London protesting against the increase of purprestures (illegal enclosures of land).