of Christ Church, Oxford (1703–29), and, dying unmarried, 7 May 1729, bequeathed large estates to trustees for augmenting poor livings in the north and for other pious uses.
There is a fine portrait of the bishop at Foxholes, which was engraved by Thomson for Hibbert-Ware's ‘Foundations of Manchester.’ Another original portrait is at the episcopal palace at Chester. The bishop's printed works consist of a charge (1692), sermons, and tracts on points of the Roman controversy.
[Raines's Rectors of Manchester and Wardens of the Collegiate Church (Chetham Soc.); Bridgeman's Church and Manor of Wigan; Hibbert-Ware's Foundations of Manchester; Earwaker's Local Gleanings relating to Lancashire and Cheshire; Ormerod's Cheshire; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Wood's Fasti; information supplied by President of Trinity College, Oxford.]
STRATFORD, RALPH de (d. 1354), bishop of London, was probably the son of a sister of John de Stratford [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, and of Robert de Stratford [q. v.], bishop of Chichester (cf. Anglia Sacra, i. 374; but elsewhere he is called simply a ‘kinsman’ of the archbishop, Annales Paulini, i. 360). His father's name was perhaps Hatton, for he is sometimes called Ralph Hatton de Stratford. He was perhaps educated, like his uncles, at Oxford, and had graduated as M.A. and B.C.L. (Bliss, Cal. Pap. Reg. ii. 534). Under his uncles' influence he entered the royal service, and as one of the king's clerks received the prebend of Banbury, Lincoln, on 2 April 1332 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, ii. 275). On 15 Dec. 1333 he received the prebend of Erchesfont, Winchester, which on 25 Sept. 1335 he exchanged for the prebend of Blibury at Salisbury (Wharton). On 11 April 1336 he also received the treasurership of Salisbury (Bliss, Cal. Pap. Reg. ii. 534). Stratford held a canonry at St. Paul's previously to 26 Jan. 1340, when he was elected bishop of London. The royal assent was given three days later, and he was consecrated by the archbishop at Canterbury on 12 March (Le Neve, ii. 291). He was present in the parliament held in April 1341, when he supported John Stratford in his assertion of his rights, and on 3 May was one of the twelve lords appointed to advise the king whether the peers were liable to be tried out of parliament (Anglia Sacra, i. 38–40; Rot. Parl. ii. 127). Stratford was one of the two candidates whom the king recommended to the pope for promotion to the cardinalate in 1350 (Geoffrey le Baker, p. 112, ed. Thompson).
Stratford died at Stepney on 7 April 1354. During the prevalence of the plague in 1348 he purchased a piece of ground called No Man's Land for a cemetery, which was afterwards known as Pardon churchyard, and adjoined the ground purchased by Sir Walter Manny [q. v.] at the same time (ib. pp. 99, 270–1). He also joined with his uncles in their benefactions to their native town of Stratford-on-Avon, and built a residence for the priests of John Stratford's chantry. Ralph Stratford himself had a house in Bridge Street, Stratford (Lee, Stratford-on-Avon, pp. 34, 41).
[Authorities quoted; Wharton's De Episcopis Londonensibus, pp. 129–30; Murimuth's Chronicle, pp. 103, 122.]
STRATFORD, ROBERT de (d. 1362), bishop of Chichester and chancellor, was son of Robert and Isabella de Stratford, and younger brother of John de Stratford [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury. He seems to have been educated at Oxford, perhaps at Merton College, like his brother. He held the living of Overbury in 1319, which he exchanged for the rectory of his native town, Stratford-on-Avon, on 27 Oct. of that year; he resigned the rectory on 11 March 1333 (Dugdale, Warwickshire, p. 684). Stratford became a clerk in the royal service, and before 1328 had obtained a canonry at Wells, besides the prebends of Wrottesley, in Tettenhall free chapel, and Middleton at Wherwell. To these he added the prebends of Aylesbury, Lincolnshire, on 11 Oct. 1328, Bere and Charminster, Salisbury, on 8 Dec. 1330, and Edynden, Romsey, on 18 Jan. 1331 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, i. 28, ii. 23, 53, iii. 8; Cal. Papal Registers, ii. 283, 325). In April and November 1331 he was keeper of the great seal in his brother's absence, and on 16 Oct. of that year was made chancellor of the exchequer. On 26 Jan. 1332 he was made a papal chaplain (ib. ii. 368). In June 1332 he was appointed his brother's lieutenant in the chancery, and in December was one of the commissioners to open parliament at York. He again had charge of the seal in April 1334. On 12 June of that year he had reservation of the archdeaconry of Canterbury, and on 6 Aug. a reservation of the deanery of Wells, conditional on the cession of his archdeaconry (ib. ii. 401–2), which, however, he appears to have retained. In 1335 Stratford became chancellor of the university of Oxford, and it was chiefly through his firmness and prudence that the projected secession to Stamford was defeated. Afterwards he had leave of absence from the university, and at the special request of the masters retained his
