CHICHELEY, HENRY (1364-1443), English archbishop, founder of All Souls
College, Oxford, was born at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, in 1363
or 1364. Chicheley told the pope in 1443, in asking leave to retire from
the archbishopric, that he was in his eightieth year. He was the third
and youngest son of Thomas Chicheley, who appears in 1368 in still
extant town records of Higham Ferrers as a suitor in the mayor's court,
and in 1381-1382, and again in 1384-1385, was mayor: in fact, for a
dozen years he and Henry Barton, school master of Higham Ferrers grammar
school, and one Richard Brabazon, filled the mayoralty in turns. His
occupation does not appear; but his eldest son, William, is on the
earliest extant list (1373) of the Grocers' Company, London. On the 9th
of June 1405 Chicheley was admitted, in succession to his father, to a
burgage in Higham Ferrers. His mother, Agnes Pincheon, is said to have
been of gentle birth. There is therefore no foundation in fact for the
silly story (copied into the _Diet. Nat. Biog._ from a local historian,
J. Cole, Wellingborough, 1838) that Henry Chicheley was picked up by
William of Wykeham when he was a poor ploughboy "eating his scanty meal
off his mother's lap," whatever that means. The story was unknown to
Arthur Duck, fellow of All Souls, who wrote Chicheley's life in 1617. It
is only the usual attempt, as in the cases of Whittington, Wolsey and
Gresham, to exaggerate the rise of a successful man. The first recorded
appearance of Henry Chicheley himself is at New College, Oxford, as
Checheley, eighth among the undergraduate fellows, in July 1387, in the
earliest extant hall-book, which contains weekly lists of those dining
in Hall. It is clear from Chicheley's position in the list, with eleven
fellows and eight scholars, or probationer-fellows, below him, that this
entry does not mark his first appearance in the college, which had been
going on since 1375 at least, and was chartered in 1379. He must have
come from Winchester College in one of the earliest batches of scholars
from that college, the sole feeder of New College, not from St John
Baptist College, Winchester, as guessed by Dr William Hunt in the _Dict.
Nat. Biog._ (and repeated in Mr Grant Robertson's _History of All Souls
College_) to cover the mistaken supposition that St Mary's College was
not founded till 1393. St Mary's College was in fact formally founded in
1382, and the school had been going on since 1373 (A.F