perhaps to watch over the Lancastrian interests. On Christmas Day 1454 Henry recovered, and received Waynflete in audience on 7 Jan. 1455 (Paston Letters, i. 315). But the defeat of Henry VI at St. Albans on 22 May following restored the Yorkists to power. Waynflete now seems to have supported the moderate Lancastrians, who desired to retain the Duke of York in the king's service (Nicolas, Proceedings, vi. 262). He still enjoyed the confidence of Henry, who on 12 July 1455 nominated him a life visitor of Eton and King's Colleges. On 11 Oct. 1456, in the priory of Coventry, Waynflete was appointed chancellor by the king (Fœdera, xi. 383). There is no foundation for Lord Campbell's story that he was nominated because his predecessor, Thomas Bourchier [q. v.], ‘refused to enter into the plots for the destruction of the Yorkists.’ As a matter of fact, the Duke of York, at this very time ‘in right good conceyt with the king’ (James Gresham to John Paston, 16 Oct. 1456), was present with his friends at the ceremony. Waynflete's salary as chancellor was 200l. a year, probably exclusive of fees.
Waynflete's next important public function was as assessor at the trial of Bishop Reginald Pecock [q. v.] for heresy, in November 1457. Whatever political animus may have been latent in this prosecution, Waynflete's denunciation of Pecock's doctrines in the reformed statutes of King's College, Cambridge, issued three years before, is evidence that his participation in the sentence against Pecock was on theological grounds.
On 18 July 1457 Waynflete obtained a license to found a college to the north-east of the original site of Magdalen Hall. The charter of foundation is dated 12 June 1458. On 14 June the society of Magdalen Hall ‘surrendered up their house with its appurtenances to the college,’ the building of which was forthwith begun.
In September 1458 civil war broke out afresh. The Lancastrians routed the Yorkist forces at Ludlow, and a contemporary letter describes Waynflete as incensed against the insurgent leaders (Paston Letters, i. 497). On 20 Nov. 1459 a packed parliament of Lancastrians was summoned to Coventry. Waynflete, as chancellor, opened it with an address upon the text ‘gracia vobis et pax multiplicetur’ (Rot. Parl. v. 345). It is evident that he now took an active part against the Yorkists. A bill of attainder against the Duke of York and his friends was passed. An oath of allegiance and confirmation of the succession to Edward, prince of Wales, was tendered singly to the lords by the chancellor (ib. p. 351), who had on 8 Jan. 1457 been appointed one of the prince's tutors (Fœdera, xi. 385).
On 3 Nov. 1459 Sir John Fastolf [q. v.] nominated Waynflete executor of his will, a trust which involved him in prolonged controversies (see Paston Letters). Fastolf had directed the foundation of a college at Caistor, which in 1474 Waynflete, with a dispensation from Sixtus IV, diverted to his own college of Magdalen (ib. ii. 402, iii. 119).
In common with the chief officers of the household Waynflete resigned office in Henry VI's tent on 7 July 1460, immediately prior to the defeat of Northampton. Like them, he took out a general pardon (Fœdera, xi. 458). Upon the accession of Edward IV, according to Leland, Waynflete ‘fled for fear of King Edward into secret corners, but at the last he was restorid to his goodes and the king's favor.’ He certainly is lost to sight for a year. That the Yorkists after Northampton again contemplated his punishment, and probably his deprivation, may be inferred from a remarkable letter on his behalf, dated 8 Nov. 1460, and written by Henry VI, then virtually a prisoner in London, to Pius II (Chandler, p. 347).
In August 1461, when Edward IV went on progress to Hampshire, the tenants of Est Men or East Meon and elsewhere, ‘in grete multitude and nombre,’ petitioned the king for relief from certain services, customs, and dues which the bishop and his agents were attempting to exact. According to the author of the ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’ (Camden Soc. 1880), the tenants had seized Waynflete, which suggests that they were preventing an anticipated escape by sea, East Meon being near the coast. Edward, however, not only rescued him from violence, but arrested the ringleaders, whose case was tried in the House of Lords on 14 Dec. 1461, when judgment was given for the bishop (Rot. Parl. v. 475).
Henceforth Waynflete appears to have acquiesced in the new order of things (Rot. Parl. v. 461, 496, 571). On 16 Nov. 1466 he received a pardon for all escapes of prisoners and fines due to the king (Chandler, p. 353). On 1 Feb. 1469 he received a full pardon (Fœdera, xi. 639), in which he was accepted as the king's ‘true and faithful subject.’ But on Edward's flight from London upon 29 Sept. 1470, Waynflete himself released Henry VI from the Tower (Warkworth, Chron. p. 11). The return of Edward IV, and his victories of Barnet
