William Waynflete - Later Life

Later Life

Whether, as alleged by some, Waynflete fled and hid himself during the period covered by the battle of Wakefield and Edward's first parliament in 1461, is very doubtful. A testimonial to his fidelity written by Henry to the pope on 8 November 1460 (Chandler, 346) was written while Henry was in Yorkist hands. The fact too that complaints laid before Edward IV himself in August 1461 of wrongful exaction of manorial rights from the tenants of the episcopal manor of East Meon., Hants, were decided in the bishop's favour in parliament in the December following (Rot. Parl. v. 475) also suggests that he was not regarded as an enemy to the Yorkists, though a personal favourite of Henry's. A general charter of confirmation to him and his successors of the property and rights of the bishopric of Winchester on 1 July 1462 (Pat. 2 Ed. IV) points in the same direction.

It is certain that he took an active part in the restoration of Eton College; which Edward annexed to St Georges, Windsor, in 1463, depriving it of a large part of its possessions. In the earliest Audit Rolls after the restoration of the college in 1467 there are many entries of visits of Provost Westbury to the lord of Winchester, which in January 1468–1469 were for beginning the work of the church and providing money for them. Why a pardon was granted to Waynflete on 1 February 1469 (Pat. 8 Ed. IV. pt. ill. m. 16) does not appear. On the restoration of Henry VI on 28 September 1470 Waynflete welcomed him on his release from the Tower, which necessitated a new pardon, granted a month after Edward's reinstatement on 30 May 1471 (Pat. II. Ed. IV. pat. i. m. 24), and a loan to the king of 2000 marks (£1333, 6s. 8d.). In the years 1471–1472 to 1474 Waynflete was largely engaged in completing the church, now called chapel, at Eton, his glazier, supplying the windows, and he contracted on 15 August 1475 for the rood-loft to be made on one side like to the rode bite in Bishop Wykeham's college at Winchester, and on the other like that of the college of St Thomas of Acres in London. In 1479 he built, the ante-chapel at the west-end, as it now stands, of stone from Headington, Oxford. In 1484 he founded Magdalen College School (now Skegness Grammar School in his birth town of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire as a satellite feeder school for Magdalen College, Oxford.

He died on 11 August 1486 at Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire. He was buried in the Magdalen Chapel at Winchester Cathedral.