Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/252

 to have held him responsible for it; and after the Black Prince's death in June 1376 and the dissolution of the Good parliament the bishop was singled out as the chief victim of his vengeance. He and Latimer changed places. In a great council which met at Westminster on 11 Oct. 1376 charges of malversation and misgovernment during his chancellorship were brought against him, closely modelled upon those on which Latimer had been impeached. He was alleged to have frittered away over a million sterling granted by parliament, surrendered the hostages for the treaty of Brétigny for his own profit, caused the loss of Ponthieu by lack of timely reinforcements, made large profits by buying up crown debts, and refused fines and payments due to the king (Fœdera, vii. 163, 168). When he craved day and counsel to answer these charges, Justice Skipworth reminded him that he had refused them to Latimer; but Lancaster interfered and granted his request. Three days later he reappeared before the council ‘well accompanyed with men, but with a pensive countenance, and with him ye bishop of London to comfort him, and some sixe serjeantes of the lawe of his counsaile’ (Chron. Angliæ, p. lxxviii). The vexatious character of the more general charges is probably indicated by the priority assigned to a case where a fine had been reduced. Wykeham vainly offered to take oath that the remission had brought him no personal profit, and, after a second adjournment, was found guilty and declared to have incurred a penalty of nearly a million marks. In a subsequent sitting the other articles were brought forward, and Lancaster demanded sentence. But the bishops claimed immunity for his ‘parsone and his spiritualtyes,’ and the council had to be content with seizing (17 Nov.) his temporalities into the king's hands, and ordering him to appear again on 20 Jan. (ib. pp. lxxx, 106).

Meanwhile he was forbidden to come within twenty miles of the court, and retired successively to Merton Priory, Newark Priory, near Woking, and Waverley Abbey. He broke up his household, and sent word to his Oxford scholars to return home. His trial was further postponed on 7 Jan. 1377; but convocation, meeting on 3 Feb., took up his cause and insisted on his presence (ib. pp. lxxxii, 114; Fœdera, vii. 132). They could not, however, induce the duke to restore the temporalities; and, though the Londoners demanded his trial by his peers, Lancaster preferred to try and divide his opponents by settling the temporalities upon the young Prince of Wales (ib. vii. 142; Chron. Angliæ, p. 126). Wykeham was specially excepted from the general pardon granted by the king in honour of his jubilee (Stat. of the Realm, i. 397). On 18 June, however, three days before Edward's death, the temporalities were restored to him on condition of fitting out three ships and paying the wages of marines for them for three months (Fœdera, vii. 149). The stipulation does not fit in well with the story that Wykeham, wearied out, bribed Alice Perrers to move the old king on his behalf (Chron. Angliæ, p. 137). Lancaster knew that his father had not many days to live, and that a French invasion was imminent. On the other hand the story of of the bribe comes from a chronicler friendly to the bishop, and Wykeham bought from Alice Perrers considerable property for Winchester College. With the accession of Richard II Wykeham's troubles were over. He received a royal pardon (31 July 1377) for the offences alleged against him, of which he was declared to be guiltless, and the young king reconciled him with his uncle (ib. p. 150; Fœdera, vii. 163, 168). The pardon was confirmed in full parliament at the end of the year. Richard released all claims upon the temporalities, in spite of which Wykeham is computed to have lost ten thousand marks by the sequestration (, p. 319).

Wykeham was ‘so deep a manager,’ however, that he was able immediately to revert to and complete without curtailment the twin foundations he had planned at Oxford and Winchester. His scholars returned to Oxford, and the purchase of a site being complete in 1379, and the license of king and pope duly obtained, Wykeham issued (26 Nov.) a charter of foundation for ‘Seinte Marie College of Wynchestre in Oxenforde.’ The first stone was laid on 5 March 1380, and the warden and scholars made their public entrance into the finished buildings ‘cum cruce erecta et litania sollemniter cantata’ on 14 April 1386 (ib. p. 332). The statutes under which they had been living were reissued by him in fuller form, and thrice subsequently he revised them. He endowed the ‘New College,’ as it came to be familiarly called, with ample revenues, and obtained a papal bull (19 July 1398) reserving all visitatorial jurisdiction over it to the bishops of Winchester. The number of persons on the foundation was no fewer than one hundred, including the priests and choristers of the chapel. Of the seventy scholars, twenty were to study canon and civil law, the rest philosophy and theology, though two of them were permitted to take up medicine and two astronomy. In itself,