Background
Christopher Urswick was born at Furness in Lancashire about 1448.
Christopher Urswick was born at Furness in Lancashire about 1448.
He was probably educated at Cambridge.
He became chaplain to Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, and was employed by her to forward the schemes for securing the English throne for her son, Henry of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. He crossed from Harfleui to Wales with Henry in August 1485, and was present at thebattle of Bosworth; then followed for him a series of ecclesiastical preferments, the most important of which was to the deanery of York. He was sent on several weighty embassies, including one to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain to arrange the marriage between Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, and another to France in 1492, when he signed the treaty of Etaples. In 1495 he became dean of Windsor, and he died on the 24th of March 1522. Urswick was very friendly with Erasmus and with Sir Thomas More. He did some building at Windsor, and one of the chapels in St George's chapel there is still called the Urswick chapel. Urswick's kinsman, Sir Thomas Urswick, was a Yorkist partisan, who was recorder of London and chief baron of the exchequer.
He was an English diplomatist. He was Archdeacon of Wilts (1488–1522), Archdeacon of Richmond (1494–1500) and Archdeacon of Norfolk (1500–1522). He was also Dean of York from 1488 to 1494, a Canon of St George's Chapel, Windsor from 1492 to 1496 and then Dean of Windsor from 1495 to 1505. He was the Lord Almoner from 1485 to 1495. He appears as a minor character in Shakespeare's Richard III.
