Sir Henry Savile

Scholar and courtier, born in Bradley, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. He studied at Oxford, became a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was appointed warden of Merton in 1585, and provost of Eton in 1596. He translated part of the histories of Tacitus (1591) and the Cyropaedia of Xenophon. He also published the first edition of St John Chrysostom (1610–13). He helped Sir Thomas Bodley in the founding of the Bodleian Library, and in 1619 he founded the Savilian chairs of mathematics and astronomy at Oxford.

Sir Henry Savile (1549 – February 19, 1622), Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and Provost of Eton, was the son of Henry Savile of Bradley, near Halifax, in Yorkshire, a member of an old county family, the Saviles of Methley, and of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Ramsden.

He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1561.

On his return he was named Greek Tutor to the Queen, and in 1585 was established as Warden of Merton by a vigorous exercise of the interest of Lord Burghley and Secretary Walsingham.

On May 26, 1596 he obtained the provostship of Eton, the reward of persistent begging. Savile insisted with considerable ingenuity that the queen had a right to dispense with statutes, and at last he got his way.

He was soon released and his friendship with the faction of Essex went far to gain him the favour of James I. It may have been to his advantage that his elder brother, Sir John Savile (1545–1607), was a high prerogative lawyer and one of the barons of the exchequer who in 1606 affirmed the right of the king to impose import and export duties on his own authority.

On 30 September 1604 Savile was knighted, and in that year he was named one of the body of scholars appointed to prepare the authorized version of the Bible. In 1604 died the only son born of his marriage in 1592 with Margaret Dacre, and Sir Henry Savile is thought to have been induced by this loss to devote the bulk of his fortune to the promotion of learning, though he had a daughter who survived him and who became the mother of the dramatist Sir Charles Sedley.

His edition of Chrysostom in eight folio volumes was published in 1610–1613. It was printed by the king's printer in a private press erected at the expense of Sir Henry, who imported the type.

Sir Henry Savile has been sometimes confounded with another Henry Savile, called Long Harry (1570-1617), who gave currency to the forged addition to the Chronicle of Asser which contains the story that King Alfred founded the university of Oxford.

A brother, Thomas Savile (d.