William Waynflete - Bishop of Winchester

Bishop of Winchester

So greatly did Waynflete ingratiate himself with Henry that when Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, Henry's uncle, died on 11 April 1447, the king wrote to the chapter of Winchester, instructing them to elect Waynflete as bishop. On 12 April he was given the custody of the temporalities, on 15 April he was elected, and on 10 May provided to the see by a papal bull. On 13 July 1447 he was consecrated in Eton church, when the warden and fellows and others of his old college gave him a horse at a cost of £6, 13s. 4d., and 13s. 4d. to the boys. Subsequent visits to Winchester inspired Henry with the idea of rebuilding Eton church on cathedral dimensions. Waynflete was assigned as the principal executor of his will for that purpose, and if there was any variance between the executors, he was to determine it. From 1448 to 1450 £3336 was spent on the church, of which Waynflete with the marquis of Suffolk and the bishop of Salisbury contributed £100 or £1,000. The troubles which began in 1450 put a stop to the work.

Waynflete, as bishop, lost no time in following the example of Wykeham and his royal patron in becoming a college founder. On 6 May 1448 he obtained licence in mortmain and on 20 August, founded at Oxford for the extirpation of heresies and errors, the increase of the clerical order and the adornment of holy mother church, a perpetual hall, called Seint Marie Maudeleyn Halle, for study in the sciences of sacred theology and philosophy, to consist of a president and 50 scholars. Its site was not that of the present college, but of two earlier halls called Boston and Hare, where the new schools now are. Thirteen M.A.s and seven bachelors, besides the president, John Hornley, B.D., were named in the charter. The dedication to Mary Magdalen was no doubt derived from the hospital at Winchester of which the founder had been master. On St Wolstan's Day, 19 January 1448–1449, Waynflete was enthroned in Winchester Cathedral in the presence of the king; and, probably partly for his sake, parliament was held there in June and July 1449, when the king frequently attended the college chapel, Waynflete officiating (Win. Coll. Reg. Vet.).

When Jack Cade's rebellion occurred in 1450 Waynflete was employed with Archbishop Stafford, the chancellor, to negotiate with the rebels at St Margaret's church, Southwark, close to Winchester House. A full pardon was promised, but on 1 August Waynflete was one of the special commissioners to try the rebels. On 7 May 1451 Waynflete, from le peynted chambre in his manor house at Southwark, asserting that his bishopric was canonically obtained and that he labored under no disqualification, but feared some grievous attempt against himself and his see, appealed to the protection of the pope. It is suggested that this was due to some disturbances at Winchester (Proc. P.C. VI. 108), where one of Cade's quarters was sent after his execution. But it is more likely, as suggested by Richard Chandler (Life of Waynflete, 1811), that it was some Yorkist attack on him in progress in the papal court, to meet which he appointed next day 19 proctors to act for him.

In the result nothing disturbed his peaceable possession of the see. With the archbishop of Canterbury he received Henry VI on a pilgrimage to St Thomas a Becket on 2 August 1451. When in November the duke of York encamped near Dartford, Waynfiete with three others was sent from the king's camp at Blackheath to propose terms, which were accepted. Edward, Prince of Wales, was born on 13 October 1453 and baptized by Waynflete the next day. This year Waynflete acquired the reversion of the manor of Stanswick, Berks, from Lady Danvers (Chandler, p. 87) for Magdalen Hall. The king became insane in 1454. On the death of the chancellor, John Kemp, archbishop of Canterbury, during the sitting of parliament, presided over by the duke of York, commissioners, headed by Waynflete, were sent to Henry, to ask him to name a new chancellor, apparently intending that Waynflete should be named. But no answer could be extracted from the king, and after some delay Lord Salisbury took the seals.

During York's regency, both before and after the First Battle of St Albans, Waynflete took an active part in the proceedings of the privy council. With a view to an ampler site for his college, Waynflete obtained on 5 July 1456 a grant of the Hospital of St John the Baptist outside the east gate at Oxford and on 15 July licence to found a college there. Having obtained a papal bull, he founded it by deed of 12 June 1458, converting the hospital into a college with a president and six fellows, to which college two days later Magdalen Hall surrendered itself and its possessions, its members being incorporated into the New College of St Mary Magdalen.