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 Repington at Oxford was to be expelled from the university. After a few months Repington made his peace with Archbishop Courtenay, and was restored to his scholastical acts by a letter of the archbishop on 23 Oct. In the convocation held at Oxford on 18 Nov. Repington again publicly abjured his heresies (, Concilia, iii. 167, 169, 172).

Repington's abjuration was complete, and there is no further question of his orthodoxy. In 1394 he became abbot of St. Mary de Pré. The abbey had an ancient connection with the house of Lancaster, and this may have brought him into notice with the future Henry IV, whose close friendship he long enjoyed. In 1397 he became chancellor of the university of Oxford, and held that office again in 1400, 1401, and 1402 (cf. Fœdera, iii. 191–2). Henry IV, soon after his accession, made Repington his chaplain and confessor, and in a document dated 5 May 1400 Repington is styled ‘clericus specialissimus domini regis Henrici’ (, Fasti, p. 35). In 1400 Repington was commissioned, with Adam of Usk, to hold an inquiry into certain irregularities that had occurred in the convent at Nuneaton (, p. 56). On 4 May 1401, being then at London, he addressed a long letter of expostulation to the king on the unhappy state of the realm (Correspondence of T. Bekynton, i. 151–4;, pp. 63–7, where Repington is not named as the author). Though the letter was apparently written at Henry's request, it does not appear to have had any effect. Stronger evidence as to Repington's influence with the king is afforded by the circumstance that, after his victory at Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, Henry summoned a servant of the abbot who was present in the army, and sent him in haste to Leicester with the news of his success (Reg. Leycest. ap., p. 622). On 19 Nov. 1404 Repington was papally provided to the bishopric of Lincoln. The temporalities were restored on 28 March 1405, and on the following day Repington was consecrated by Archbishop Arundel at Canterbury (, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 62). Among his first acts as bishop, Repington granted a general license to the graduate and non-graduate theologists of Oxford and to the masters and bachelors of arts of the university to preach anywhere in his diocese (, Hist. and Antiq. i. 541). This license seems to have been prompted by the lack of properly qualified preachers in the diocese; it was certainly not due to any lurking sympathy with lollardism (Church Quarterly Review, xix. 74). William Thorpe [q. v.], the lollard, in his confession in 1407, referred to ‘how now Philip Rampington pursueth Christ's people.’ Archbishop Arundel, in reply, declared that Repington ‘neither holdeth now, nor will hold, the learning that he taught when he was canon of Leicester. For no bishop of this land pursueth now more sharply them that hold this way than he doeth’ (, Ecclesiastical Biography, i. 262). On 21 Aug. 1406, when the king was at Bardney Abbey, Repington rode over from Lincoln to meet him (, De Antiquis Monachorum Ritibus, p. 855). In July 1408 he was present in a special convocation held at St. Paul's.

On 18 Sept. 1408 Repington was created a cardinal, by the title of SS. Nereus and Achilleis, by Gregory XII. Gregory had previously sworn to create no cardinals, and at the council of Pisa, on 5 June 1409, he was deposed, and all his acts done after May 1408 annulled. This may have invalidated Repington's position for the time; but the sentence was cancelled at the council of Constance, when Gregory resigned. Up to this date it had been maintained that a cardinalate could not be held in England with an English bishopric. But there does not seem to have been any formal objection taken at the time, whether owing to the favour of Henry IV or to the doubtful character of Repington's cardinalate. Repington is not styled cardinal in English official documents. It is possible that Repington left England and was for a time in the company of Gregory XII, for he was during this period absent from his diocese (Church Quarterly Review, xix. 79). But it is clear that he was not, as one biographer (ib.) supposes, permanently absent. He was a commissioner for an aid in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire in 1410, and was present in the royal council on 19 March 1411 and 16 April 1415 (, Proc. and Ord. Privy Council, i. 343, ii. 7, 156). Moreover, in 1413, he proposed to hold a visitation of the university of Oxford on account of the prevalence of heresy (, Hist. and Antiq. i. 555). Again, he assisted at the consecration of Robert Lancaster as bishop of St. Asaph at Lincoln on 28 June 1411, and at that of John Wakering as bishop of Norwich at St. Paul's on 31 May 1416 (, Reg. Sacr. Angl. pp. 63–4). In 1419 he issued a proclamation against those who did not reverence processions (, Concilia, iii. 396). On 10 Oct. 1419, perhaps in consequence of the objection which Henry V had taken to the proposed promotion of Henry Beaufort to the cardinalate, Repington resigned his bishopric. The pope accepted the resignation on 21 Nov., and the acceptance was