Anthony Belasyse

Anthony Belasyse, also Bellasis, Bellows and Bellowsesse (died 1552) was an English churchman and jurist, archdeacon of Colchester from 1543. Life He was a younger son of Thomas Belasyse of Henknowle, co. Durham. He proceeded bachelor of the civil law in the university of Cambridge in 1520, and was afterwards created LL.D., but it is supposed that he took that degree in a foreign university. In 1528 he was admitted an advocate. On 4 May 1533 he obtained the rectory of Whickham, co. Durham, being collated to it by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstal, who on 7 June following ordained him priest. In the same year he was presented to the vicarage of St. Oswald in the city of Durham. In 1539 he became vicar of Brancepeth in the same county, and about this time he resigned Whickham. His name is subscribed to the decree of convocation, 9 July 1540, declaring the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves to have been invalid. Later in the same year he obtained a prebend in the collegiate church of Auckland and a canonry at Westminster. Edmund Bonner, bishop of London, collated him to the archdeaconry of Colchester on 27 April 1543. He held also the mastership of the hospital of St. Edmund, Gateshead, and had a prebend in the collegiate church of Chester-le-Street. In January 1544 he was installed in the prebend of Heydour-cum-Walton in Lincoln Cathedral. In 1544 he was appointed a master in chancery, and on 17 October in that year he was commissioned with the Master of the Rolls, John Tregonwell, and John Oliver, also masters in chancery, to hear causes in the absence of Thomas Wriothesley, the lord chancellor.