William de Raleigh (1244-1249) came from the see of Norwich to that of Winchester. He was elected by the monks in 1238, but, as explained elsewhere, it was six years before he gained possession, though confirmed in his office by the Pope. He retired to France, then under the rule of Louis IX., until Henry at length gave way. Raleigh, however, did not live to enjoy his honours long, dying during a stay at Tours in 1249.
Ethelmar or Aymer de Valence (1250-1261), who succeeded him, was half-brother of Henry III., being son of the Count of La Marche, who married John's widow. As a native of Poitou, his appointment was as unpopular as that of de Roches, and, moreover, he is said to have been only an acolyte when Henry forced the monks to accept him as their bishop. At first he was only styled "bishop-elect" of Winchester, and he was not consecrated until Ascension Day 1260. Even before his appointment we are told that his revenues exceeded those of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he was permitted to retain them. His tyranny and greed provoked the Oxford Parliament in 1258 to expel him from the kingdom and he fled to France, dying three years later in Paris while on his return from Rome to England; for he had induced the Pope to espouse his cause and consecrate him.
John Of Exeter or John Gervase (1265-1268) was appointed by the Pope on the death of Aymer, in preference to two rivals whose election was disputed. He is accused of having purchased his elevation. He assisted the barons in the Civil War, and after Simon de Montfort's failure was suspended and cited to appear at Rome, where he died.
Nicholas of Ely (1268-1280) had been lord chancellor and high treasurer before he obtained Winchester. On his death he was buried at Waverley Abbey, but an inscription on the wall of the south choir aisle marks where his heart was interred in his cathedral.
John de Pontissara, Pontoise, or Sawbridge (1282-1304), nominated by the Pope against the will of Edward I., at length made his peace by paying a fine of 2000 marks and giving his manor of Swainstone, Isle of Wight, to the king. He built a college of S. Elizabeth of Hungary at Winchester. He had been Chancellor of Oxford University, though at the time of his election he was Professor of Civil Law at Modena.
Henry Woodlock (1305-1316), former prior of S. Swithun's monastery, who performed the coronation of Edward II.; John Sandale (1316-1319); Reginald Asser (1320-1323); John Stratford (1323-1333), whose election was opposed by the king, but who in the next reign was translated to Canterbury—are not particularly noticeable.
Adam Orleton or de Orlton (1333-1345) was translated hither from Worcester by the Pope against the king's wishes. He has the most unenviable notoriety of having been the bishop of Hereford who instigated the brutal murder of Edward II. on September 21, 1327. He had been accused of high treason and deprived of Hereford, but was restored thereto by the barons. Edward III. apparently at length received him into favour; but Orleton went blind some years before his death. He is buried in the Chapel of the Guardian Angels.
William Edingdon (1346-1366), though chiefly notable for his architectural work at Winchester, was treasurer of England in 1350 and chancellor seven years later. He might, had he wished it, have become Archbishop of Canterbury, but preferred Winchester. He began the great remodelling of the nave, and, dying before much of the work was done, left certain property, as appears from his will, for carrying on the work; though it is also said that a claim was made against his executors with regard to the dilapidations of the see. His general reputation was, as a biographer says, "that he loved the king's advantage more than that of the community." He founded a convent of "Bonhommes" at his native village of Edingdon, in Wiltshire, where the church building, or rather rebuilding, is due chiefly to him. He was buried in his own chantry in the cathedral. His "monkish epitaph," as Warner calls it, runs thus:
| Edyndon natus Wilhelmus hic est tumulatus Praesul praegratus, in Wintonia cathedratus. Qui pertransitis, ejus memorare velitis. Providus et mitis ausit cum mille peritis. Pervigil Anglorum fuit adjutor populorum. Dulcis egenorum pater et protector eorum. MC tribus junctum post L.X.V. sit I punctum Octava Sanctum notat hunc Octobris inunctum. |
William of Wykeham (1367-1404), whose name has become so identified with Winchester Cathedral and College, was probably a native of the village of Wykeham, near Litchfield. Born in 1324, after education at Winchester and Oxford he was in 1346 presented to the king, Edward III., at the age of twenty-three, "with no other advantages than his skill in architecture" and "the courtly attribute of a courtly person." In the course of the next twenty-one years he rose rapidly, filling various offices until he became Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chancellor of England. His first recorded appointment is to the clerkship of all the king's works near Windsor, and in the same year he was surveyor of the new buildings there, including the round tower and the eastern ward of the Castle and a College to the west for the Order of the Garter, occupying the site of the ancient Domus Regis, close to the present S. George's Chapel. On one of the towers the inscription This made Wykeham may or may not be meant to convey a double meaning, but it is certainly true that his architectural successes furthered his fortunes. In 1357 he received the tonsure, and in 1360 was made Dean of S. Martin's Le Grand, Archdeacon of Lincoln, Northampton, and Buckingham, and Provost of Wells. In 1361 he commenced Queenborough Castle on the island of Sheppey; this important edifice, covering over three acres of ground, was demolished about 1650. The castles of Winchester, Porchester, Wolvesey, Ledes, and Dover, with many others, are believed to have been either entirely rebuilt, or at least enlarged, by him. He was only ordained priest five years before his elevation to Winchester. In 1394 he undertook the great reformation of the cathedral which is dealt with in another part of this book. New College (Sainte Mary of Wynchestre), Oxford, opened by Wykeham on April 14, 1386, effected almost as great a revolution in university education as his famous college at Winchester did for the training of boys. As Dr Ingram has pointed out, the very title of "New" College which has clung to it shows how completely a new collegiate system was established by its foundation, which served as a model for future endowments. His well-known motto—chosen when his growing dignity made it necessary for him to possess armorial bearings—"Manners Makyth Man" has generally been taken to mean that virtue alone is true nobility; Lord Campbell, however, would have us rather interpret "manners" as the studied etiquette of courts and the polished courtesy which Lord Chesterfield held so important a factor in success. Willis styles it "a somewhat radical sentiment at the time." In his own day the secular arts Wykeham practised did not meet with universal approval, for Wiclif alludes to him when he observes, "They wullen not present a clerk able of God's word and holy ensample, but a kitchen clerk, or a penny clerk, or one wise in building castles and other worldly doings." But despite this objection, the whole of Wykeham's biographers, contemporary or posthumous, agree in praising him as highly as Fuller, who says that his "benefaction to learning is not to be paralleled by any English subject in all particulars," and his great innovation, whereby elementary education was taken from the hands of the monks and, as in his own college, established upon an entirely different plan, would alone stamp him as one whose foresight was far beyond his own times. He influenced the nation in a way not easy to over-estimate, inasmuch as he originated, or at least carried into execution, the idea of the great public school, as Englishmen understand it, and, by the building of Winchester College, founded the institution he had long meditated in a way worthy of his design. Previously to the actual construction of the college, he had maintained in temporary shelters numbers of poor students. On the death of the Black Prince, whose fortunes he had vigorously espoused, and the assumption of power by John of Gaunt, Wykeham was impeached on the charge of embezzling the royal revenues, accepting bribes, and the like; and the king laid hands on the temporalities of his see. But almost the last act of Edward III. was to restore what he had seized to the bishop, under certain conditions which show the great wealth of the latter. Milman, in his "Latin Christianity," does full justice to the "splendid, munificent prelate, blameless in character," who devoted his vast riches to the promotion of learning, and says that, though his endeavour to maintain the hierarchical power over humanity was bitterly opposed by Wiclif, "the religious of England may well be proud of both." Wykeham was eighty years of age when he died, and his body lies in the chantry erected by his orders on the south side of the nave.