nius IV granted the succession to the see of Ely to the Archbishop of Rouen. Happily the grantee died before the bishop, an so the grant had no effect. The next year, however, he was subjected to a fresh slight. Kemp, the archbishop of York, was created a cardinal, and claimed precedence of Chichele even in parliament. As far as the House of Lords was concerned the claim was of course vain, and as to its validity elsewhere an appeal was made to the pope. Both by letters and by proctors Chichele argued that in his own province at all events no one could have precedence of him. Nevertheless Eugenius decided in Kemp’s favour, and Chichele was forced to yield. As an ecclesiastical lawyer Chichele took thought for the spiritual jurisdiction of the church. In 1432 he framed a constitution on a petition of the clergy, forbidding any one save a graduate in law from acting as a judge in a spiritual court, and in a speech delivered before a synod held in London in November 1439 he declared that many wrongs were inflicted on ecclesiastical judges by the interpretation put by the common lawyers on the statute of praemunire. A petition was accordingly presented to glarliament asking that the operation of the statute should be limited to those who invoked the interference of foreign courts (Concilia, iii. 533). In July l441 Chichele sat in St. Ste hen’s Chapel, Westminster, to hear the cliarges brought against Eleanor Cobham, duchess of Gloucester. On the reopenin of the case after the adjournment on 21 Oct. he was unable from sickness to attend in person. The last few years of his life were much occu ied in carrying out his foundation at Oxfordi lle was already a benefactor to the university, for, moved by the poverty of some of the students, he had given two hundred marks for their relief. This sum was placed in a chest called ‘Chichele's chest,’ and the university and each college were allowed to borrow 5l. from it in turn. To New College he also gave a like sum, and therefore it did not participate in the common fund. Besides his foundations at Higham Ferrers he had been a considerable benefactor at Canterbury, spending much money on the cathedral church and library. At Lambeth also he built and repaired much, his chief work there being the water tower, which in the eighteenth century received the erroneous name of the Lollards’ tower. The needs of the poor students at Oxford, and the knowledge that he, as visitor, had of the condition of the university, stirred him up to a greater work than any of these, and he bought five acres of land, the site of St. John’s College, intending to build a college there. He was, however, led to prefer another site, and freely gave this land to the Cistercians for the use of their scholars, and built them a college upon it. For his own secular college he purchased the land whereon it now stands on 14 Dec. 1437, and on 10 Feb. following laid the foundation-stone of the building. The society he founded consisted of a warden and forty fellows. He called his college All Souls, for he ordained that its members should give themselves to prayer as well as to learning, and he endowed it with lands to the value of 1,000l., which he had bought of the crown, and which were part of the property of the alien priories. He obtained 318 royal charter of incorporation on 30 May 1438, and sent to Eugenius IV asking him to confirm it. The pope granted his request in July 1439, and exempted the college from the operation of any future interdict. Chichele lived to see the buildings virtually completed, and early in 1443, attended by four of his suffragans, visited Oxford, where he was received with great honour, and opened the college and consecrated the chapel. On 10 April 1442 he wrote to the pope, saying that his age and infirmities rendered him unable to discharge the duties of his office; he prayed that he might be allowed to resign his archbishopric, and that John Stafford, bishop of Bath, might be his successor. At the same time the king wrote to ask that a sufficient pension might be set apart from the rents of the see for his maintenance. Before his intended resignation could be accomplished Chichele died on 12 April 1443. He was buried on the north side of the presbytery of his cathedral church, in a tomb erected in his lifetime, which presents him lying in his pontifical robes, while underneath is his skeleton wrapped in a shroud.
Portraits of Chichele are at Oxford and Lambeth; one, in a window of the great hall at Lambeth, is very beautifully executed.
