Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/235

 held the living of Llanvarchall in the diocese of St. Asaph, and the next year was ordained subdeacon by the Bishop of Derry, acting for the Bishop of London. On 30 March 1396, when he had taken the LL.D. degree, he was presented to the rectory of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, by the prior and convent of St. John of Colchester, on 26 May he was ordained deacon, and on 23 Sept. priest , and the same year was admitted an advocate in the court of arches. Having been employed as a lawyer by Richard Mitford, bishop of Salisbury, he was on 3 Sept. 1397 appointed to the archdeaconry of Dorset, with a prebend of Salisbury, and resigned the rectory of St. Stephen's. His right to the archdeaconry, which was claimed by one Walter Fitzpers, was established by sentence of the archbishop's court about 1402. From Guy de Mohun, bishop of St. David's, he received a canonry in the collegiate church of Abergwilly in 1400, and on 2 Oct. of that year was admitted canon of Lichfield. On 10 June 1402 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Salisbury, and on 14 Dec. 1404 exchanged it for the chancellorship of the church, together with the living of Odiham, in the diocese of Winchester. Having done some business for the pope, he was in 1402 nominated by provision to a prebend of Salisbury and to canonries in the churches of Wilton and Shaftesbury, and he is further said to have held a prebend in Lincoln. He was presented to the living of Melcombe in the diocese of Salisbury, and exchanged it for Sherston, in the same diocese. He was appointed executor under the will of his friend and patron the bishop of Salisbury, who died in 1407.

His first public employment was on a mission to Innocent VII, to whom he was sent in company with Sir John Cheyne in July 1405. On 5 Oct. of the same year he was one of the commissioners appointed to treat for peace with the king of France, and in April 1407 he was sent on an embassy to Gregory XII, who was then at Siena (Fœdera, viii. 446, 452, 479). While he was at Gregory's court the Bishop of St. David's died, and the pope, with the approval of Henry IV, appointed Chichele as his successor by provision, and on 17 June 1408 himself consecrated him at Lucca. On Chichele's return to England in the following August he renounced all claims prejudicial to the royal authority. He had not visited his diocese when in January 1409 he was chosen by the convocation of Canterbury to accompany Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, to the council of Pisa. The English ambassadors did not arrive at Pisa until 27 April, immediately before the sixth session of the council. In the Michaelmas term of this year Chichele was cited by writ of quare impedit to show cause why he should continue to hold his Sarum prebend, to which the king claimed to appoint as vacant by his promotion to a bishopric. The case was heard by Chief-justice Thirning, who refused to allow the plea that the pope had given Chichele license to hold his other preferments along with his bishopric, and gave judgment for the crown (Year-Book 11 Hen. IV, 37, 59, 76). Chichele accordingly determined to resign the preferments he held in commendam, and obtained leave from Alexander V to nominate those who should succeed him in them, the royal license for bringing the bull into England and acting upon it being dated 28 April 1410 (Fœdera, viii. 632). The chancellorship of the church of Sarum he conferred on his nephew, William, son of his brother William Chichele, sheriff of London. In May he was sent on an embassy to France to treat for a renewal of the truce, and succeeded in arranging terms that were granted on 23 Dec. (ib. 636, 668). When this business was accomplished he went down to St. David's, where he was at last enthroned on 11 May 1411, and where he devoted some time to the affairs of the diocese. On the accession of Henry V he was again employed as an ambassador, being sent to France in July 1413, in company with the Earl of Warwick. The representatives of the two kings met at Lenlinghen, and agreed on a truce to last until the ensuing Easter (, c. 106).

On the death of Archbishop Arundel [q. v.] on 19 Feb. 1414 the king nominated Chichele to the see of Canterbury; he was elected on 4 March, received the temporalities 30 May, and the pall 24 July. Hall in his account of the parliament held at Leicester on 30 April 1414 makes Archbishop Chichele warmly advocate war with France, in the hope of foiling the attacks made by the Lollard party on the church (, Chron. 35). This passage, which forms the basis of the speech given to the archbishop by Shakespeare (‘Henry V,’ act i. sc. 2), must not be accepted as accurate, for, as Dr. Stubbs points out (Const. Hist. iii. 83), ‘Chichele did not sit as archbishop in the Leicester parliament,’ nor indeed does his name occur in the roll of its proceedings (Rot. Parl. iv. 15). At the same time there is no reason to doubt that he belonged to the war party, and when hostilities began Chichele and the clergy generally exerted themselves to find the means for its prosecution, a line of action, however, which certainly does not bear the charge brought against