ubsequently he was made high treasurer and chancellor of the duchy of
Lancaster. In October 1494 he became high steward of the university of
Oxford, and he was a member of the parliament summoned in the 11th year
of Henry VII's reign. In June 1497 he was at the battle of Blackheath,
and his services in repressing the Cornish rebels were rewarded with a
gift of estates and the title of knight banneret. His taste and skill in
architecture are attested by Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster and St
George's chapel at Windsor. He directed the building of the former, and
the finishing and decoration of the latter, to which, moreover, he was a
liberal contributor, building at his own expense a chapel still called
by his name and ornamented with his crest, the initial letters of his
name, and a device representing the hemp-bray, an instrument used by
hemp manufacturers. He died in 1503, before the Westminster chapel was
completed, and was interred in St George's chapel.

BRAY, THOMAS (1656-1730), English divine, was born at Marton,
Shropshire, in 1656, and educated at All Souls' College, Oxford. After
leaving the university he was appointed vicar of Over-Whitacre, and
rector of Sheldon in Warwickshire, where he wrote his famous
_Catechetical Lectures_. Henry Compton, bishop of London, appointed him
in 1696 as his commissary to organize the Anglican church in Maryland,
and he was in that colony in 1699-1700. He took a great interest in
colonial missions, especially among the American Indians, and it is to
his exertions that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel owes
its existence. He also projected a successful scheme for establishing
parish libraries in England and America, out of which grew the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge. From 1706 till his death in February
1730 he was rector of St Botolph-Without, Aldgate, London, being
unceasingly engaged in philanthropic and literary pursuits.

BRAY, a village in the Wokingham parliamentary division of Berkshire,
England, beautifully situated on the west (right) bank of the Thames, 1
m. S. of Maidenhead Bridge. Pop. (1901) 2978. There are numerous
riverside residences in the locality. The church of St Michael has
portions of various dates from the Early English period onward, and is
much restored. It contains a number of brasses of the 14th, 15th, 16th
and 17th centuries. A well-known ballad, "The Vicar of Bray," tells how
a vicar held his position by easy