Career
He is assumed to have been educated at Cambridge, as he is not mentioned in Wood. He is described as ‘sanctæ theologiæ’ ‘professor,’ but in his epitaph states ‘doctor of laws.’ On 29 April 1449 he was advanced to the prebend of Tachbrook in Lichfield Cathedral, on 30 March 1453 to Norwell Overall in Southwell, and in 1457 to South Cave in York Cathedral. On 19 May 1467 he was moved to the rectory of Eakring, Nottinghamshire.
On 28 September
1476 he became archdeacon of Nottingham, and on 22 January 1478−9 he was elected dean of Saint Paul"s in succession to Thomas Winterbourne. He retained with it the archdeaconry of Nottingham and the prebend of Willesden in Saint Paul"s, and from 1493 to 1496 was also archdeaconry of Taunton.
Worsley held the deanery throughout the reigns of Edward V and Richard III, but in 1494 he became involved with the revolutionary movement by Perkin Warbeck.
He was arrested in November, confessed before a commission of Oyer and terminer, and was found guilty of high treason on the 14th (Rot Parl vi 489b). The lay conspirators were put to death, but Worsley was saved by his order, and on 6 June 1495 he was pardoned (Gairdner, Letters and Papers, ii 375).
In October following parliament passed an act (11 Henry VII, c 52) restoring him in blood (Statutes of the Realm, ii 619). He had retained his ecclesiastical preferments, and died in possession of them on 14 August
1499, being buried in Saint Paul"s Cathedral.
His epitaph and a very pessimistic copy of Latin verses are printed by Weever (Funerall Monuments, p 368. Gough, Sepulchral Mon ii 337). Fabyan describes Worsley as ‘a famous doctour and precher’ (Chronicle, p 685).
His will, dated 12 February
1498−9, was proved at Lambeth on 8 November 1499, and at York on 27 March 1500, and is printed in ‘Testamenta Eboracensia,’ iv.
155−6. By it he left money for an obit in Saint Paul"son