and Tewkesbury, followed by the deaths of Henry VI and Edward, prince of Wales, left the Lancastrian cause hopeless. Waynflete was obliged to purchase another full pardon on 30 May 1471 (Fœdera, xi. 711), this time by a ‘loan’ of 1,333l. (Ramsay, ii. 390). On 3 July 1471, with other peers, he took an oath of fealty to Edward IV's eldest son [Edward V] (Fœdera, xi. 714), and was henceforth constantly at court. Meanwhile he was completing his college, as well as that of Eton. He finished off the Eton college buildings, for the greater part at his own expense (Chandler, pp. 137, 153, 154). On 20 Sept. 1481 Waynflete visited Magdalen, and on the 22nd entertained Edward IV there. He took part in the funeral ceremonies of Edward IV on 19 April 1483 at Windsor (Gairdner, Letters and Papers, i. 7). On 24 July 1483 he entertained Richard III at Magdalen (ib. p. 161). In 1484 he began the construction of a free school at his native place, endowing it with land which he had acquired in 1475. This school still flourishes under the title of Magdalen College School, Wainfleet.
The countenance of a prelate so respected as Waynflete cannot fail to have strengthened the position of Richard III. On 5 July 1485 the king borrowed of him 100l., doubtless a forced loan, to be spent in meeting the expected invasion of Henry VII.
In December 1485 Waynflete retired from his palace at Southwark to his manor of South Waltham, Hampshire. There on 26 April 1486 he executed his will. He had already completed his magnificent tomb and chantry in Winchester Cathedral, where he directed that he should be buried. He left bequests in money to the members of the various religious houses in Winchester and of the colleges of St. Mary Winton and New and Magdalen, Oxford. Almost all his estates in land he devised in trust for Magdalen College. On 2 Aug. 1486 he made further provision for Cardinal Beaufort's Hospital of St. Cross (Chandler, p. 225). He died, apparently of a complaint of the heart, on Friday, 11 Aug. 1486 (Campbell, Materials, ii. 67), having retained his senses to the last.
Waynflete was of the school of episcopal statesmen of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom Beaufort and Wolsey are the leading types. Like Wolsey, he was a favourer of learning, and is even said, though the statement is doubtful, to have provided for the study of Greek at Magdalen (Chandler, pp. 267–8). He set Wolsey an example in the suppression of religious houses for his college. As chancellor he left the reputation of an upright and prudent administrator of justice (Polydore Vergil, p. 74), ‘warilie wielding the weight of that office’ (Holinshed, Chron. iii. 212). A eulogy of him by Laurence William of Savona [q. v.], written in London in 1485, is printed by Chandler (p. 376) from Wharton's ‘Anglia Sacra’ (i. 326). The panegyrist speaks of his venerable white hair (‘veneranda canities’). This is the only contribution to a personal description which has come down to us. The picture which prefaces Chandler's ‘Life’ is taken either from a mask of the bishop's effigy in Winchester Cathedral or from the oil-painting at Magdalen College. If, as is probable, this is a portrait, Waynflete had large eyes and a refined countenance. Another representation of him appears as a support to the cushion under the head of the effigy of his father upon the tomb erected by the bishop in Wainfleet church, now removed to Magdalen College chapel. An effigy of Waynflete has also been placed on the outer western wall of Eton College Chapel.
The bishop's younger brother, John Waynflete, became dean of Chichester, and died in 1481 (Chandler, p. 240). Chandler adduces good reason for the conclusion that the statement first traceable to Guillim (Display of Heraldry, p. 408; cf. Holinshed, Chron. iii. 212; Godwin, De Præsulibus, p. 233), that there was a third brother, Richard Patten of Baslowe, Derbyshire, is a fiction. The arms originally born by Waynflete were ‘a field fusilly, ermine, and sable.’ After he became provost of Eton he inserted ‘on a chief of the second three lilies slipped argent,’ borrowed from the shield of Eton College. These arms have ever since been borne by Magdalen College. He added as his motto the verse of the Magnificat, ‘Fecit mihi magna qui potens est,’ still remaining incised over the door of the chapel of his college.
