WAYNFLETE, WILLIAM (1395-1486), English lord chancellor and bishop of Winchester, was the son of Richard Pattene or Patyn, alias Barbour, of Wainfleet, Lincolnshire (Magd. Coll. Oxon. Reg. f. 84b), whose monumental effigy, formerly in the church of Wainfleet, now in Magdalen College Chapel at Oxford, seems to be in the dress of a merchant. He went to Oxford. In 1430 he was head master of Winchester col lege. In 144o Henry VI. founded Eton College, and after visiting Winchester appointed Waynflete provost. Waynflete had to ar range for the financing and completion of the buildings at Eton. In the last year (1446-47) of his provostship the full roll of scholars, 7o, was already complete. The provost was still in high favour with Henry, for when Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, Henry's uncle, died (April II, Henry wrote the same day to the chapter of Winchester, the prior and monks of St. Swithin's cathedral, to elect Waynflete as his successor. On July 13, 1447, he was consecrated in Eton church, when the warden and fellows and others of his old college gave him a horse at a cost of £6, 13s. 4d., and 13s. 4d. to the boys. Subsequent visits to Winchester inspired Henry with the idea of rebuilding Eton church on cathedral dimensions. Waynflete was principal executor of his "will" for that purpose.
Waynflete, as bishop, lost no time in following the example of Wykeham and his royal patron in becoming a college founder. In 1448 he obtained a licence for founding Magdalen College, Oxford. On Jan. 9, 1449 Waynflete was enthroned in Winchester cathedral in the presence of the king; and, probably partly for his sake, parliament was held there in June and July 1449, when the king frequently attended the college chapel, Waynflete officiating. When Jack Cade's rebellion occurred in 1450 Waynflete was employed with Archbishop Stafford, the chancellor, to negotiate with the rebels at St. Margaret's church, Southwark, close to Winchester House. A full pardon was promised, but on Aug. Waynflete was one of the special commissioners to try the rebels. The king became insane in 1454. On the death of the chancellor, John Kemp, archbishop of Canterbury, during the sitting of parliament, presided over by the duke of York, com missioners, headed by Waynflete, were sent to Henry to ask him to name a new chancellor, apparently intending that Waynflete should be named. But no answer could be extracted from the king, and after some delay Lord Salisbury took the seals. During York's regency, both before and after the battle of St. Albans, Waynflete took an active part in the proceedings of the privy council. With a view to an ampler site for his college, Waynflete obtained on July 5, 1456 a grant of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist outside the east gate at Oxford and on July 15 licence to found a college there. Having obtained a papal bull, he founded it by deed of June 12, 1458, converting the hospital into a college with a president and six fellows, to which college two days later Magdalen Hall surrendered itself and its possessions, its members being incorporated into "the New College of St. Mary Magdalen."
Meanwhile Waynflete himself had been appointed chancellor, the seals being delivered to him by the king in the priory of Coventry in the presence of the duke of York, apparently as a person acceptable to both parties. In October 1457 he took part in the trial and condemnation for heresy of Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester. Only Pecock's books and not the heretic were burnt. Waynflete presided as chancellor at the parliament at Coventry in November 1459, which, after the Yorkist catastrophe at Ludlow, attainted the Yorkist leaders. It was no doubt because of this that, three days before the Yorkist attack at Northampton, he resigned the chancellorship (1460). But Waynflete does not seem to have been regarded as an enemy by the Yorkists, though he was a personal friend of Henry's, for the rights of the bishopric of Winchester were confirmed to him in 1462, and he took an active part in the restoration of Eton College under Edward IV., and in the building of the church, now called the chapel, at Eton. Yet he received a pardon in 1469, and in 1471, in the latter case probably because he welcomed Henry on his release from prison.
In 1474 Waynflete, being the principal executor of Sir John Fastolf, who died in 1459, leaving a much-contested will, pro cured the conversion of his bequest for a collegiate church of seven priests and seven almsmen at Caistor, Norfolk, into one for seven fellows and seven poor scholars at Magdalen. In the same year that college took possession of the alien priory of Sele, Sussex, the proceedings for the suppression of which had been going on since 1469. The new, now the the old, buildings at Magdalen were begun the same year, the foundation-stone being laid in the middle of the high altar on May 5, (Wood, The college was completed in 1480, and this date, not the earlier one, is usually given as the foundation date. Magdalen College school was founded at the gates. In September 1481 Waynflete received Edward IV. in state at the college, where he passed the night, and in July 1483 he received Richard III. there in even greater state, when Master William Grocyn, "the Grecian," a fellow of New College, "responded," in divinity. In 1484 Wayn flete gave the college the endowment for a free grammar school at his name-place, Wainfleet, sufficient to produce for the chantry priest-schoolmaster L Jo a year, the same salary as the headmaster of Magdalen School, and built the school which still exists almost untouched, a fine brick building with two towers, 76 ft. long by 26 f t. broad. The next year saw the appropriation to the college of the Augustinian Priory of Selborne, Hants.
Waynflete died on May II, 1486, and was buried in Winchester cathedral. The effigy in Magdalen College Chapel at Oxford is an authentic portrait.