Friday, November 15, 2013

The Curious Case of John Garrett Underhill, Jr. and his ties to JFK

Final resting place of Captain General John G. Underhill, Jr.,
in the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown, New York.
To mark the tragic circumstances surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, we thought it fitting to highlight the story of an Underhill relative who had a brush with that sad chapter in our nation’s history.

John Garrett Underhill, Jr. (1915-1964), was born August 7, 1915, the son of John Garrett Underhill, Sr. (1876-1946), and Louisa Mann Wingate (1869-1927). Wingate’s father General George Wood Wingate played a role in forming the National Rifle Association. Sadly, Underhill’s mother Louisa died in 1927 when John Garrett was only 12 years old.[i]

Underhill went on to study linguistics and graduate from Harvard College in 1937. This continued a family tradition. His father, John Garrett Underhill, Sr. translated the plays of Cervantes from Spanish and was a professor at Columbia University.

In 1940 it was announced in The New York Times that Underhill was to wed Miss Patricia Semple Dunkerson, a graduate of Vassar College.[ii] They were married on June 12 that year at St. Bartholomew's Protestant Episcopal Church in Brooklyn.[iii]

Burial site of John Garrett Underhill, Sr. and Louisa Wingate
Underhill, also in the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown, New York.
John Garrett Underhill, Jr. put his linguistic skills to good use during World War II. He served as a Technical Editor and later Chief Editor of the War Department's Military Intelligence Division between July 6, 1943 and May 1946.[iv],[v] During the war he specialized in photography and enemy weapons. Underhill rose to the rank of Captain General Staff G2. For his service he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service.

Following the war Underhill was a military correspondent for Life magazine for five years.[vi] His hard work helped to make their Foreign News Department one of the most knowledgeable centers of military intelligence in the world. Under the pseudonym Garrett Underhill he wrote the “Report on the Red Army.” The report was published on October 16, 1949. In the report it was noted how Garrett Underhill was a writer and editor, and served for 3 1/2 years on the War Department General Staff. It noted how he “is owner of a large private collection of Soviet small arms, acquired during a fifteen-year interest in foreign armaments?”[vii]

From late 1949 to the mid-1950s Underhill was in informant who had contact with the office of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA.[viii] In 1951 he wrote a 6500 word essay with Ronald Schiller entitled “The Tragedy of the US Army” for Look magazine that was published February 13, 1951.[ix] After writing the article the Harvard Alumni Bulletin printed Underhill's own words of how he “Got recalled to brown suit service just after finishing a 6500 word article.”[x]

John Garrett Underhill, Jr., volunteered and served as Deputy Director for the Civil Defense of Washington, D.C. An exercise meant to simulate an evacuation in the event of a hydrogen bomb attack called "Operation Alert" was carried out in 1955. Underhill was outspoken in his criticism of the exercise, stating in the press it was not a “drill but a show.” During the exercise he declined heading to the command post for the exercise claiming, it was "so inadequate it couldn't cope with a brushfire threatening a doghouse in a backyard." Samuel Spencer, one of the commissioners who govern the District of Columbia, upon hearing Underhill's criticism ordered his dismissal just as "Operation Alert" began.[xi]

 John Garrett Underhill, Jr., took an active interest in family organizations. One letter from November 1950 expressed his interest in “the revival of the three Underhill organizations.”[xii] He would have ample opportunity to play a hand in that revival between 1954 and 1956 when he served as President of the Underhill Society of America.

 Near the end of his life Underhill became surrounded in controversy surrounding facts related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that Kennedy had been killed by "a small clique in the CIA." He knew the people involved and what they knew. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!"

 Jim Garrison, District Attorney from Louisiana conducted an investigation into the assassination of Kennedy. Among the witnesses he sought out was John Garrett Underhill, Jr. In an interview that Garrison gave for Playboy magazine, he referred to a CIA agent with valuable information pertaining to his investigation. The name of Gary Underhill was used interchangeably in sources with John Garrett Underhill. A Memorandum from the CIA to the Justice Department in 1967 referred to the interview and John Garrett Underhill, Jr. in some detail:
15. Who is the J. Garrett UNDERHILL referred to in Garrison's Playboy interview as a former CIA agent? UNDERHILL was born 7 August 1915 in Brooklyn, was graduated from Harvard in 1937, and committed suicide on 8 May 1964. He served with the Military Intelligence Service from 6 July 1943 to May 1946 as an expert in photography, enemy weapons, and related technical specialities. He was in infrequent contact with the New York office of the Domestic Contact Service, of CIA from late 1949 to the mid-'50s. The contact was routine. Mr. UNDERHILL was not an employee of CIA.[xiii]
CIA agent Gary Underhill, again, a name used interchangeably with John Garrett Underhill, Jr., was said to have a connection with Harold Isaacs who in turn knew Oswald's cousin Marilyn Murret.[xiv] Prior to Garrison being able to meet and interview Underhill, he was found in bed with a bullet wound behind his left ear.[xv] He died on May 8, 1964, at his home on 3035 M St, NW in Washington, D.C.

 Sources differ on whether the cause of his death was suicide[xvi] or if people or groups had motivations to see him removed before had secret information that he threatened to divulge. His Death Certificate from the District of Columbia Department of Public Health listed the cause of death as “shot self in head with automatic pistol.”[xvii]

Certificate of death for John Garrett Underhill, Jr.
Surviving John Garrett Underhill, Jr., were his wife Patricia D. Underhill, one son John Garrett Underhill III, and a sister Mrs. Ernest Eltinge of Warwick, New York. After his death he was buried in the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown, New York.[xviii] His wife Patricia D. Underhill died on December 15, 1973. A memorial service was held in her memory at Christ Church, Washington, D.C.[xix] John Garrett Underhill III lived at 10220 Memorial Dr. in Houston, Texas. An obituary for him ran in the March 22, 1987 issue of the Houston Chronicle, Section 2, Page 15.

 On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, it is helpful to take a moment to reflect on the life of John Garrett Underhill. Neither a hero or a rogue, instead, he was another person in a long line of family members who made great sacrifices and in so doing contributed to the character of their nation. Relatives of Underhill in their own times served Queen Elizabeth I, nurtured Shakespeare’s talent. After the family immigrated to America they founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, defended New Amsterdam in the Indian Wars, and served their nation with distinction in military service and other areas of American life in the decades and centuries to follow.



[i] "Louisa Underhill Dies; Founder of Brooklyn Junior League - Headed Other Organizations". The New York Times. May 17, 1927. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[ii] "Miss Dunkerson to Wed; Vassar Graduate Affianced to John Garrett Underhill, Jr.". The New York Times. May 4, 1940. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[iii] "Patricia Dunkerson Married in a Chapel; Wed to John G. Underhill Jr. at St. Bartholomew's". The New York Times. June 13, 1940. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[iv] Air force magazine, Volume 36. Air Force Association, United States. Army. Air Corps. 1993. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[v] Winkler, Allan M. (1993). Life under a cloud: American anxiety about the atom. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[vi] Air force magazine, Volume 36. Air Force Association, United States. Army. Air Corps. 1993. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[viii] "Patricia Dunkerson Married in a Chapel; Wed to John G. Underhill Jr. at St. Bartholomew's". The New York Times. June 13, 1940. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[ix] Harvard alumni bulletin, Volume 54, Issue 2. Harvard Alumni Association. 1951. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xi] "President and his Aides Leave Washington Before Mock Hydrogen Bomb Attack". The New York Times. June 16, 1955. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xii] "Myron C. Taylor Papers". Underhill Society of America. June 16, 1955. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xiii] McAdams, John (2011). "More on Defying the Odds: The Mysterious Deaths". JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. p. 108-109. ISBN 9781597974899. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
[xiv] Craig, John S. (2005). Peculiar liaisons: in war, espionage, and terrorism in the twentieth century. Algora Publishing. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xv] "President and his Aides Leave Washington Before Mock Hydrogen Bomb Attack". The New York Times. June 16, 1955. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xvi] "President and his Aides Leave Washington Before Mock Hydrogen Bomb Attack". The New York Times. June 16, 1955. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xvii] "Certificate of Death". District of Columbia Department of Public Health. May 9, 1964. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xviii] "Deaths". Washington Post. May 10, 1964. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
[xix] "Deaths Attack". The New York Times. December 19, 1973. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
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Monday, September 2, 2013

President Theodore Roosevelt Address at Dedication of Underhill Monument, July 11, 1908


“I have known any number of Underhills in every walk of life, men who made their living in many different ways - men belonging to the professions, men who followed the sea, men who tilled the soil, men of means, men who made each day’s living by that days work with their hands - and all of them decent citizens. I won’t say that there are not some Underhills who are not decent, but fortunately I have not met them.”

-          Theodore Roosevelt, address on dedication of Underhill monument at the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown, New York



President Theodore Roosevelt Address at Dedication of Underhill Monument, July 11, 1908

Colonel Underhill, Friends, and Neighbours. It gives me real pleasure to accept this invitation, because I thought it a good thing that the founder of what has become one of the distinctive Long Island families should have a monument erected to him here. I shall not try to speak to you of the career of Captain Underhill - a man who left his mark deep on the history of New England as well as New Holland; one of the men who in the colonial times helped lay the foundations for the nation that was to be  for others will address you upon his life. I want to say just a word or two in greeting you on what his career and the career of his descendants should mean in our American life of to-day. I have known Underhills all my life, on land and on water - bankers, lawyers, storekeepers, farmers, carpenters, blacksmiths, captains of oyster boats, fisherman, pilots - men of every calling and occupation. They have served well in the army; they have served well in times of peace.

The founder of the family here was a good soldier and a good citizen, and the Underhills of to-day have furnished their full quota of good soldiers and good citizens in their turn. If they had not, I would not have been here,  I have no use whatever for the man with nothing but a pedigree, the man the best part of whom is under ground. I believe in the pride of ancestry, but only if it takes the form of making the man or woman try to carry himself or herself well as regards the duties of to-day. If at the time of the Civil War you, Mr. Chairman, had felt that the fact that the original Captain Underhill was a fighter excused you from fighting, I should have thought mighty little of you. The thing to do is to feel (and I guess you, comrade, over there  I mean the man with the Grand Army button  you will agree with me) that if you had ancestors who did their duty it is doubly incumbent upon you to do your duty. I have known any number of Underhills in every walk of life, men who made their living in many different ways  men belonging to the professions, men who followed the sea, men who tilled the soil, men of means, men who made each day’s living by that days work with their hands  and all of them decent citizens. I won’t say that there are not some Underhills who are not decent, but fortunately I have not met them. 

Now if there is one lesson that we here in America ought continually to keep before us, it is our substantial oneness, our substantial unity as a people; and one of the best ways to exemplify that is by just such a family gathering as this. If the family has been long enough in the land, why you will find its representatives in every walk of life; you will find them filling all kinds of occupations; you will find them as capitalists and wage-workers, farmers, mechanics, professional men, everything; and the essential point to remember is that each one is entitled to the fullest and heartiest respect if he does his duty well in the position in life in which he happens to find himself. That is sound American doctrine. I should not much care to attend an Underhill gathering that was limited to capitalist Underhills, nor yet one limited to Underhill wage-workers; but I am glad to attend one where every one comes in on the basis of decent American citizenship, each standing ruggedly on his own feet as a man should.

The same thing that applies to you Underhills here applies to the rest of us who are not Underhills in the country at large.  We have made this country what it is partly because we have measurably succeeded in securing in the past equality of opportunity here. That is very different from equality of reward. I believe emphatically in doing everything that can be done by law or otherwise to keep the avenues of occupation, of employment, of work, of interest, so open that there shall be, so far as is humanly possible to achieve it, a measurable equality of opportunity  equality of opportunity for each man to show the stuff that is in him. But when it comes to reward, let him get what by his energy, foresight, intelligence, thrift, courage, he is able to get with the opportunity open. I don’t believe in coddling anyone. I would no more permit the strong to oppress the weak than tell a weak or a vicious man that he ought by rights to have the reward due only to the man who actually earns it. Very properly we in this country set our faces against privilege.

There can be no grosser example of privilege than that set before us as an ideal by certain Socialist writers - the ideal that every man shall put into the common fund what he can, which would mean what he chose, and should take out whatever he wanted; in other words, this theory is that the man who is vicious, foolish, a drag on the whole community, who contributes less than his share to the common good. Should take out what is not his, what he has not earned; that he shall rob his neighbour of what that neighbour has earned. This particular Socialistic ideal would be to enthrone privilege as one of its grossest, crudest, most dishonest, most harmful, and most unjust forms. Equality of opportunity to render service,  yes, I will do everything I can to bring it about. Equality of reward,  no, unless there is also equality if service. If the service is equal, let the reward be equal, but let the reward depend on the service. And mankind being composed as it is, there will be inequality of service for a long time to come, no matter how great the equality of opportunity may be, and just so long as there is inequality of service, it is eminently desirable that there should be inequality of reward.

But in securing a measurable equality of opportunity, let us no more be led astray by the doctrinaire advocates of a lawless and destructive Individualism than by the doctrinaire advocates of a deadening Socialism. As society progresses and becomes more complex, it becomes desirable to do many things for the common good by common effort. No empirical line can be laid down as to where and when such common effort by the whole community should supplant or supplement private and individual effort. Each case must be judged on its own merits. Similarly, when a private or corporate fortune of vast size is turned to a business use which jeopardizes the welfare of all the small men, then in the interest of everybody, in the interest of true individualism, the collective or common power of the community must be exercised to control and regulate for the common good this business use of vast wealth; and while doing this we must make it evident that we frown upon arrogance and oppression.

 You see, Dominie, you let yourself in for a little sermon when you came here. I did not intend to speak as much. I want to thank you for having given me the chance to come over and meet my fellow-Long Islanders, my neighbours, my fellow-citizens.
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Captain John Underhill of Warwickshire

Captain John Underhill, son of John Edward Underhill, was born in 1597 in Warwickshire, he fled along with his family to the fortified city of Bergen op Zoom in Holland. His father John Edward Underhill served as Sergeant in the company of Captain Roger Orme. Following his fathers death in October 1608, John Underhill, his mother and siblings lived with a group of Puritan exiles. He received military training as a cadet in service of Philip William, the Prince of Orange. Underhill married Helena de Hooch on December 12, 1628, in the Kloosterkerk, The Hague, Holland. John Underhill was hired to accompany a group of Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. There in New England, a new chapter in the story in the distinguished history of the Underhill family began.
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John Edward Underhill (1574-1608)

The Underhill family found themselves deep in the currents of Elizabethan history and politics, having first-hand contact with some of the most influential and enigmatic figures of the time. The rise of the Underhill family much like that of Dudley and others was accomplished by gaining the favor of the crown, and the gifts of lands, titles, and exclusive contracts that followed. The holdings of the Underhill family would reach their height during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. At that time they had acquired property in every parish within six miles of Ettington. Further, they became connected with some of the best families of Warwick by marriage, and many members of the family obtained knighthood. [i] 

As with well known figures of the time associated with the Elizabethan court, many would come to inauspicious ends, including the Underhill family. While Sir Hugh Underhill and his son Thomas Underhill fared well, John Edward Underhill (1574-1608) was not quite as fortunate.

He first married Mary Moseley. Following her death he married his second wife Leonora Honor Pawley in 1595 and had three children, John (1597-1672), Lettice (1608-1673), and Petronella (date unknown). Their son Captain John Underhill was born October 7, 1597, in Baginton, Warwickshire, England.
John Edward Underhill was a friend and companion to the Earls of Leicester and Essex, and as a youth serve in Leicester’s own Troop of Guards that was sent to the assistance of the Dutch by Queen Elizabeth. When Netherlands offered their sovereignty to the Earl of Leicester, John Edward Underhill was bearer of dispatches to that effect to Lord Burleigh. The Queen and Underhill had a private interview in which she instructed to deliver a confidential letter.

Royall Tyler in The Algerine Captive (1795) recounts a family story about an interaction between Sir John and Queen Elizabeth I.[ii] The Earl of Leicester had been sent to the Netherlands to aid in their defense. Underhill was responsible for delivering dispatches from Leicester to Lord Burleigh and the Queen. The same day the dispatches were delivered, that evening the Queen summoned Sir John.
She asked “So Leicester wants to be a king?”

Underhill replied that the Dutch had indeed made the offer of sovereignty of their country to her general.

“No”, replied the queen, “it is not the Dutch; they hate kings and their divine right; it is the proud Leicester, who years to be independent of his own sovereign, who moves this insolent proposal. Tell him, from me, that he must learn to obey, before he is fit to govern. Tell him” added the queen, softening her voice, “that obedience may make him a king indeed.”

The Queen then dispatched Underhill with a letter to deliver to Leicester, a purse of one hundred crowns for himself, and direction to enclose the letter in lead and sink it in case of danger in his passage by sea, and to deliver it privately.

Leicester upon receiving the letter was agitated and walked his chamber the whole of the ensuing night. After he recovered, he returned to England, “animated by the brightest hopes of realizing the lofty suggestions of his ambition” according to Tyler.

For Elizabeth to be before the grandson of her loyal servant at Greenwich, and the son of Dudley’s assistant Thomas, using him to deliver a personal message, must haven given pause to her and Underhill, for he was the third generation now in service of the queen.

In December 1587, after Underhill delivered the letter, Leicester returned to England. He was severely in debt because of his personal financing of the war. In July 1588, the Earl of Leicester was appointed Lieutenant and Captain-General of the Queen’s Armies and Companies as the Spanish Armada neared. After the Armada, he is said to have dined every day alone with the king. He died at Combury Park near Oxford on 4 September 1588. Elizabeth was in such shock that she locked herself in her apartment for several days. She kept the last letter he sent her only six days before her death, and put it in her treasure box at her bedside, where it was until she died 15 years later.

John Edward Underhill made the unfortunate decision of tying himself the Earl of Essex who was successor of Leicester to the Queen’s favor. While Underhill had been involved in the successful attack on Cadiz, Spain, he also shared the ill fortunate in a campaign against Tyronne in Ireland. When Essex rose in insurrection against the Queen, Essex was executed and Underhill left for the safety of Holland. He remained there for a number of years in the company of a group of pious Puritans in Bergen op Zoom. He died in 1608 and was buried in the Gertrudiskerk (Church of St. Gertrude). 


[i] Collectanea topographica et genealogica By Frederic Madden, Bulkeley Bandinel, John Gough Nichols
(Published by J. B. Nichols and Son., 1840)
[ii] Tyler mistakes Captain John with his father Sir John in this narrative, still the story easily translates to his father. 
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Dr. John Underhill, Bishop of Oxford

The presence of the Underhill family at Oxford reaches at least as early as 1372, when Robert Underhill was noted as being one of the proctors for the University of Oxford. [i] Over 20 others by the name of Underhill are included in the alumni register for Oxford University.[ii]

Sir Kenelm Digby gave a collection of manuscripts to the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford in December 1634. The Dissolution of monasteries under Henry VIII had caused many manuscripts to be dispersed and gathered in private collections. One particular manuscript Bodleian Library MS Digby 86 traces its roots to the Grimhill and Underhill families who lived in south-western Worcestershire.[iii] Reference was made to several members of the Underhill family in this manuscript. A certain William Underhill, son of Simon Underhill, was responsible for several pen-trials or practice fragments of script, in the manuscript before it was completed.[iv] This manuscript contained a codex, recording important people and events that are not readily apparent through reading of the printed text and believed to still be in the collection of the Bodleian Library.
Dr. John Underhill was born in Oxford in 1545 and rose to the position of Bishop of Oxford. The facts of John Underhill’s connection to the broader Underhill family tree are unclear.[v] We do now that his father Thomas Underhill was freeman (1532) and an innholder of the Cross Inn in Oxford, and Elizabeth was his wife. [vi]

The Cross Inn had previously been a monastic inn before being sold to a wine merchant. John Underhill is one of two bishops to be born on the premises. The other was the Bishop of Worchester who was born there in the 12th century. [vii] John Underhill, as we said, was born around 1545,[viii],[ix] and his siblings Pierce Underhill and Joan Underhill followed. [x] Thomas Underhill ran the Cross Inn until his death in the 1560’s.[xi],[xii]

Elizabeth, who was Thomas Underhill’s wife, following his death would marry Robert Forest[xiii] who occupied No. 4 Cornmarket beginning in 1555, next door to the Cross Inn at No. 5 Cornmarket. Records from the City of Oxford show Robert Forest as a saddler as early as 1540-41, Council member in 1554, and win an apprentice James Rudd in 1561-1562. [xiv] By 1560 Robert Forest’s wife Elizabeth Forest appears to have owned No. 4 Cornmarket.

John Underhill received his education in Winchester School and was made a fellow of New College in 1563.[xv] In 1576 he is noted for having opposed the visit of Robert Horne, Bishop of Winchester, for what Underhill apparently felt were his too frequent visits.[xvi] Horne had him removed from his fellowship. Underhill appealed to the Chancellor of Oxford, Robert Dudley, through whom the family had other well-established connections including Thomas Underhill who served as Keeper of the Wardrobe at Dudley’s Kenilworth Castle. Dudley advised John Underhill to threaten a lawsuit which he did, and then Underhill received his reinstatement.  John Underhill was selected on June 22, 1577, as one of four rectors appointed by Robert Dudley to lead Lincoln College. This appointment was despite strenuous objections from several of the fellows. [xvii]

Around 1581 Underhill became chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, and on September 7, 1581, was named rector of Thornton-le-Moors, Cheshire. About 1586 he was appointed one of the vicars of Bampton, and on March 15, 1587, was instituted rector of Witney in Oxfordshire. Among his many praises were being considered “an eloquent and ingenious Man.”[xviii]

Shortly after becoming chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, in 1583 John Underhill became owner of No. 3 Cornmarket in Oxford that had been owned by the late John Tattleton. [xix] Tattleton died in 1581 and his widow died in 1582. A tavern most likely had been operated here at least since 1558 when John Wakelyn was given a license to operate a tavern.  During the seventeenth century inn’s provided accommodations for travelers and their horses, and a tavern did not have these same functions.[xx] Tattleton was most certainly a vitner, though it was Wakelyn’s license that allowed him to conduct a tavern at his house. The wine-taverns were the common rooms of the University prior to the eighteenth century before the development of college common rooms.[xxi] This fact at least partially explains why following the death of John Tattleton, that Dr. John Underhill came to own the building. Later John Davenant, a vitner would also come to own what had been known as Tattleton’s house. Finally, the tavern became known as The Crown under the ownership of Jane and William Morrell.[xxii]

Map of Dr. John Underhill House in Oxford, [xxiii]


John Underhill reportedly had his house on the south side of New Inn located in Oxford.[xxiv] A house that John Underhill owned on the south side of New Inn was conveyed by him to several Fellows of New College. A lane passing by New Inn was called the “7 deadly sinns vel vicus septem peccatorum mortalium 14 Eliz” or translated  “The lane of seven deadly sins.”

Leicester died suddenly September 4, 1588. The following year Francis Walsingham raised Underhill to the See of Oxford on December 8, 1589.[xxv] The purpose for doing so apparently was for Underhill to renew the leases of Episcopal estates and to receive the large fines due for such renewals. The best estates were conveyed to the Earl of Essex, while others went to Walsingham.[xxvi] Apparently Underhill had little interest for this work, though he complied with the promise that higher office would follow. Underhill resigned as rector of Lincoln College in 1590. Once completing work set out to him by Walsingham, having no further use of him, Underhill was neglected and according to some accounts “died in poverty and disgrace.”[xxvii]

The poverty of the see he inherited was equally great. One account follows:
The poverty of this see; the actual difficulty of living; the misery of many of the burdened clergy; the notable fact that more than one hundred and ninety benefices had been unserved for nearly a quarter of a century, and that the country people, some not baptized, were un-taught, unfed, and often buried without Christian rites, depressed his lordship so seriously that, within two years and a half, in a state of incurable melancholy, he took to his bed, and passed to his final account.[xxviii]

Underhill’s placement as Bishop was not so much to do justice to the claims of the diocese, but because “devotion to the leases would yield good fines”. What Underhill was able to accomplish in his time as bishop was limited, for there was no ordination and he never came to the diocese after his acceptance of it.[xxix]

He died on May 12, 1592, by some accounts at Greenwich,[xxx] and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.[xxxi] Bishop Underhill was married and had one daughter.[xxxii]


Note: The connection between Dr. John Underhill and Captain John Underhill at this time is unknown.

[iii] Voices in the past: English literature and archaeology by John Hines, Boydell & Brewer, 2004, http://books.google.com/books?id=DM8wT7fJmTwC&lpg=PA73&dq=underhill%20oxford&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q=underhill&f=false
[v] The Underhill’s of Warwickshire published in 1932, claims “it is impossible to fit them into our knowledge of the armigerous family (unless they were descended from one of the early Staffordshire branches – but this is no more than a guess).
[vi]  “Thomas Underhyll” is recorded in Oxford Town Records as first being named an apprentice around 1536-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=bOoVAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22pierce%20underhill%22%20oxford&pg=PA149#v=onepage&q=underhyll&f=false
[viii] Another account gives John Underhill’s birth date as 1546 (The pictorial and historical gossiping guide to Oxford, James J. Moore, 1912, p.17)
[x] Rare Sir William Davenant, Mary Edmond, 1987, p. 20
[xi] Rare Sir William Davenant, Mary Edmond, 1987, p. 20
[xvii] University of Oxford, College Histories: Lincoln, by A. Clark, Biblio Bazaar, LLC, 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=vDvyotpBiz8C&lpg=PA49&dq=%22john%20underhill%22%20oxford%20tavern&pg=PA51#v=onepage&q&f=false
[xix] Rare Sir William Davenant: poet laureate, playwright, Civil War general, Restoration theatre manager, by Mary Edmond, Manchester University Press, 1987, p. 20
[xx]Acheson, 598
[xxi] Rare Sir William Davenant, p. 19
[xxii] Acheson, 606
[xxxi] http://books.google.com/books?id=vDvyotpBiz8C&lpg=PA49&dq=%22john%20underhill%22%20oxford%20tavern&pg=PA55#v=onepage&q&f=false
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