Katharine Szuynford 51 



Ricardi Secundi say, the appointment was made out of regard 

 for John of Gaunt.*'^ Accordingly, we must suppose him to 

 have been born not later than Feb. 2y, 1368. 



(4) In 1398 Henry Beaufort also became Chancellor of 

 Oxford.*^ While this office was exceptionally conferred upon 

 younger men,*® it was one of much responsibility,^" and until in 

 the next century it suffered degradation,^^ and the custom grew 

 up of allowing it to be held by practical absentees,^^ it was usually 

 bestowed upon a Doctor of Theology or Canon Law,^^ who had 

 often spent 20 years on the studies leading to this degree.^* 



(5) On Feb. 28, 1403, Beaufort was appointed Chancellor of 

 England. This was an office almost never held at an early age, 

 Thomas Arundel (b. 1353), Chancellor in 1386, being the 

 youngest I have noted in that epoch. Other Chancellors were: 

 Richard de Bury (55), Courtenay (ca. 39), Stafford (52), 

 Wykeham (65), Michael de la Pole (ca. 53), Richard le Scrope 

 (ca. 51), Waynflete (ca. 61). Add Sudbury (18 years after 

 becoming Bishop of Lincoln) ; Braybrooke (22 years after 

 becoming priest) ; Thoresby (29 years after becoming acolyte) ; 

 Offord (15 years after becoming Archdeacon of Chester, and 



*' 'Ob Ducis reverentiam et amorem' (Walsingham, Hist. Angl. 2. 228; 

 Annalcs, p. 227). When the author of the Annales subjoins 'admodum 

 puero,' he may be contrasting Beaufort with the previous incumbent, 

 John Bokyngham, translated to Lichfield in order to make way for his 

 successor, for the Pope had alleged his 'imbecillitatem et senectutem, 

 quibus reddebatur impotens ad regendum tantum dioecesim et plebem.' 

 When Beaufort was translated to Winchester in 1404, again by papal 

 provision, he succeeded William Wykeham, who had died at the age 

 of 80; Beaufort himself died in 1447, 'annis non minus quam divitiis 

 gravis' (Froissart 20. 282) ; and Waynflete, who succeeded Beaufort, 

 was about 91 when he died, still Bishop of Winchester, in 1386. 



^Wylie 3. 263. 



*' Courtenay obtained it in 1367, when only 25 {Diet. Nat. Biog. 12. 342). 



'" Lyte, Hist. Univ. Oxford, pp. 170, 231-2. Robert Stratford, Chancellor 

 in 1335, was already Chancellor of England in 1331 ; Richard Fitzralph, 

 born before 1300, was Chancellor in 1333; Thomas Gascoigne (b. 1403), 

 in 1434; Thomas Bourchier (b. 1404?), in 1434, the same year he was 

 made Bishop of Worcester. 



" Lyte, pp. 326-7. 



"'Lyte, p. 325. 



*'Lyte, p. 231. 



"Lyte, p. 223; of. p. 199. 



