William Waynflete

William Waynflete (11 August 1486), born William Patten, was Provost of Eton College (1442–1447), Bishop of Winchester (1447–1486) and Lord Chancellor of England (1456–1460). He founded Magdalen College, Oxford, and three subsidiary schools, namely Magdalen College School in Oxford, Magdalen College School, Brackley in Northamptonshire and Wainfleet All Saints in Lincolnshire. Early life Waynflete was born in Wainfleet in Lincolnshire (whence his surname) in about 1398. He was the eldest son of Richard Patten (alias Barbour), a merchant. His mother was Margery, daughter of Sir William Brereton of Brereton, Cheshire. He had a younger brother named John, who later became the dean of Chichester. It has been suggested that Waynflete attended Winchester College and New College, Oxford, but this is improbable. Neither college claimed in his lifetime that he was one of its former students. However, that Waynflete was at the University of Oxford, and probably a scholar at one of the grammar schools there, before passing on to the higher faculties, is shown by a letter of the Chancellor addressed to him when Provost of Eton College, which speaks of the university as his mother who brought him forth into the light of knowledge and nourished him with the alimony of all the sciences. Waynflete is probably the William Barbour who was ordained as an acolyte by Bishop Fleming of Lincoln on 21 April 1420 and subdeacon on 21 January 1421; and as William Barbour, otherwise Waynflete of Spalding, was ordained deacon on 18 March 1421, and priest on 21 January 1426, with entitlement from Spalding Priory.