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 April 1309 he refused to attend until the archbishop of York, disgusted at not being allowed to bear his cross, went back to the north. In his zeal for clerical privilege Winchelsea had even taken up the cause of his old enemy Langton, who was still imprisoned by royal authority alone. He refused to have any dealings with the king as long as Langton was unlawfully detained (, p. 14). In March 1310 Winchelsea was one of the lords ordainers, though in April Edward was still urging him to persuade convocation to make fresh grants from its spiritualities. After the first draft of the ordinances was issued in August 1310, Winchelsea on 1 Nov. published in St. Paul's a solemn excommunication of all who should impede their execution or publish to the world the secrets of the ordainers. When Edward broke the ordinances by recalling Gaveston in January 1312, Winchelsea at once excommunicated Piers and his abettors. Langton was released and restored to the treasury in March, despite Winchelsea's strenuous opposition. But in April the ordainers turned him out of his post, and Winchelsea excommunicated him for taking office against the provisions of the ordinances. On Langton going to the papal court to remonstrate against the sentence, Winchelsea despatched thither his clerk, Adam Murimuth, the chronicler, to represent his interests against the bishop (, p. 18).

Winchelsea's weak health makes his political activity the more remarkable. He did not, however, neglect the more spiritual side of his office during these years. He was much involved in the proceedings for the suppression of the templars (Cal. Papal Letters, ii. 48, 49), though he took no personal part in the council that he summoned for 25 Nov. 1308 to St. Paul's. He was associated with the papal commissioners sent to investigate the charges against them, but again he did not act. However, on 29 Dec. 1309 he opened another synod at St. Paul's by preaching a sermon. Ill-health prevented him from attending its later proceedings. He showed himself anxious to check the excessive zeal of the enemies of the order, and absolved by commission all the templars who professed penitence and accepted the declaration maintaining their orthodoxy (Flores Hist. iii. 145). He died at Otford on 11 May 1313, and was buried on 16 May at Canterbury, in the south part of the choir, near the altar of St. Gregory, against the south wall. The tomb has now disappeared.

In his will Winchelsea left his books and many rich vestments to the monks of his cathedral and some legacies to all his servants (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. i. 460). There was, however, much delay in carrying out his testament, and in 1325 Prior Eastry urgently entreated Archbishop Reynolds to suffer the administration to be completed on account of the scandal caused by the delay (Lit. Cantuar. i. 44, 54, 134). This scandal was all the greater since popular veneration had already made Winchelsea an object of worship. The wounds discovered on his body had been attributed to self-maceration (, p. 13). Many miracles had been worked at his tomb, and his associates, the ordainers, pressed strongly for his canonisation. In 1319 Thomas of Lancaster sent a report of his miracles to Avignon, and Reynolds ordered the bishops of London and Chichester to investigate their authenticity. John XXII answered Lancaster by explaining the deliberate nature of the procedure of the curia in such matters, and nothing more seems to have been done in Thomas's lifetime. After the fall of Edward II the agitation was renewed, and in March 1327 Reynolds sent the pope a long schedule of miracles worked by him (Lit. Cantuar. iii. 398–402, gives the correspondence; cf., App. i. 56; Cal. Papal Letters, 1305–42, p. 422). Nothing, however, came of the effort to make him a saint.

[Wharton's Anglia Sacra, especially Birchington in i. 11–17, Annales Monastici (Osney, Wykes, Dunstaple, and Worcester), Chron. Edw. I and Edw. II (Ann. Londin. and St. Paul's, and Canon of Bridlington), Cont. Gervase of Canterbury, Bartholomew Cotton, Rishanger, Langtoft, Murimuth, Flores Hist., Chron. de Melsa, Literæ Cantuarienses (all in Rolls Ser.); Hemingburgh (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Thorn in Twysden's Decem Scriptores; Chron. de Lanercost (Bannatyne Club); Rymer's Fœdera; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th and 8th Rep.; Parl. Writs; Rolls of Parl. vol. i.; Cal. of Papal Letters, vols. i. and ii.; Cal. of Patent and Close Rolls, Edw. I and Edw. II; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ed. Hardy; Godwin, De Præsulibus, 1743; Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury. The best modern accounts are in Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. ii. and prefaces to the Chron. of Edw. I and Edw. II (Rolls Ser.); Hook's Life in Archbishops of Canterbury (iii. 368–454), though elaborate, is careless in details and unhistorical in tone; many extracts from Winchelsea's register, still at Lambeth, are given in Wilkins's Concilia, ii. 185–423; the whole well deserves calendaring or publishing.] 

WINCHESTER,. [See , 1485?–1573, first ;, 1535? –1598, third ;, 1598–1675, fifth .]