WHADDON, a parish in the hundred of COTTESLOE,
county of BUCKINGHAM, 4 miles (S. by E.) from
Stony-Stratford, containing, with the hamlet of Nash,
900 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry
of Buckingham, and diocese of Lincoln, rated
in the king's books at £10, endowed with £600 private
benefaction, £600 royal bounty, and £200 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of the Warden and
Fellows of New College, Oxford. The church is dedicated
to St. Mary. A charity school was founded here
by a Mr. Coare, who endowed it with £10 per annum
for teaching twenty children; he also erected an almshouse,
but died before fulfilling his intention of en-
dowing it. A small priory of Benedictine monies, in
honour of St. Leonard, was founded at Snelleshall, prior
to the time of Henry III., by Ralph Martel, which,
at the dissolution, had a revenue of £24, The prior
obtained, in 1227, a grant of a weekly market on
Thursday, long since disused. Whaddon Hall was once
the seat of Arthur, Lord Grey, who was honoured by a
visit from Queen Elizabeth, in 1568, then on her Buckinghamshire
progress. Spenser, the poet, his lordship's
secretary, was frequently here: it was afterwards purchased
and occupied by Browne Willis, the antiquary.
Dr. Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely, an eminent champion
of the Reformation, and one of the principal composers
of the Liturgy, was born in this parish, in 1499.