eley was tenacious of the privileges
of his see, and this involved him in a constant struggle with Henry
Beaufort, bishop of Winchester. In 1418, while Henry V. was alive, he
successfully protested against Beaufort's being made a cardinal and
legate _a latere_ to supersede the legatine jurisdiction of Canterbury.
But during the regency, after Henry VI.'s accession, Beaufort was
successful, and in 1426 became cardinal and legate. This brought
Chicheley into collision with Martin V. The struggle between them has
been represented as one of a patriotic archbishop resisting the
encroachments of the papacy on the Church of England. In point of fact
it was almost wholly personal, and was rather an incident in the rivalry
between the duke of Gloucester and his half-brother, Cardinal Beaufort,
than one involving any principle. Chicheley, by appointing a jubilee to
be held at Canterbury in 1420, "after the manner of the Jubilee ordained
by the Popes," threatened to divert the profits from pilgrims from Rome
to Canterbury. A ferocious letter from the pope to the papal nuncios, on
the 19th of March 1423, denounced the proceeding as calculated "to
ensnare simple souls and extort from them a profane reward, thereby
setting up themselves against the apostolic see and the Roman pontiff,
to whom alone so great a faculty has been granted by God" (_Cal. Pap.
Reg._ vii. 12). Chicheley also incurred the papal wrath by opposing the
system of papal provision which diverted patronage from English to
Italian hands, but the immediate occasion was to prevent the
introduction of the bulls making Beaufort a cardinal. Chicheley had been
careful enough to obtain "Papal provisions" for himself, his
pluralities, his bishopric and archbishopric.

But, after all, it is not as archbishop or statesman, persecutor,
papalist or antipapalist that Chicheley is remembered, but for his
educational foundations. He endowed a hutch, i.e. chest or loan-fund for
poor scholars at New College, and another for the university of Oxford
at large. He founded no less than three colleges, two at Oxford, one at
Higham Ferrers, while there is reason to believe that he suggested and
inspired the foundation of Eton and of King's College. His first college
at Oxford, in perishing, gave birth to St John's College, which now
holds its site. This was St Bernard's College, founded by Chicheley
under licence in mortmain in 1437 for Cistercian monks, on the model of
Gloucester Hall and