William Worcester

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William Worcester (c. 1415 – c. 1482), English chronicler, was a son of William of Worcester, a Bristol citizen, and is sometimes called William Botoner, his mother being a daughter of Thomas Botoner.

He was educated at Oxford and became secretary to Sir John Fastolf. When the knight died in 1459, Worcester, although one of his executors, found that nothing had been bequeathed to him, and with one of his colleagues, Sir William Yelverton, he disputed the validity of the will. However, an amicable arrangement was made and Worcester obtained some lands near Norwich and in Southwark. He died about 1482.

Worcester made several journeys through England, and his Itinerarium contains much information. The survey of Bristol is of value to antiquaries. Portions of the work were printed by James Nasmith in 1778, and the part relating to Bristol is in James Dallaway's Antiquities of Bristowe (Bristol, 1834).

Worcester also wrote Annales rerum Anglicarum, a work of some value for the history of England under Henry VI. This was published by Thomas Hearne in 1728, and by Joseph Stevenson for the Rolls series with his Letters and Papers illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry VI (1864). Stevenson also printed here collections of papers made by Worcester respecting the wars of the English in France and Normandy.

Worcester's other writings include the last Acta domini Johannis Fastolf. See the Paston Letters edited by James Gairdner (1904); and F. A. Gasquet, An Old English Bible and other Essays (1897).