Early Life
William was born in Wainfleet, 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 in Cheshire. He had a younger brother named John, who later became the dean of Chichester.
It has been alleged that he 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.
That he was at 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 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.
He is probably the William Barbour who was ordained 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 title from Spalding Priory.
He may have been the William Waynflete who was admitted a scholar of the King's Hall, Cambridge, on 6 March 1428 (Exch. Q. R. Bdle. 346, no. 31), and was described as LL.B. when receiving letters of protection on 13 July 1429 (Proc. P.C. iii. 347) to enable him to accompany Robert FitzHugh, D.D., warden of the hail, on an embassy to Rome. For the scholars of the King's Hall were what we should call fellows, as may be seen by the appointment to the hall on 3 April 1360 of Nicholas of Drayton, B.C.L., and John Kent, B.A., instead of two scholars who had gone off to the French wars without the warden's leave (Cal. Close Rolls). William Waynflete, presented to the vicarage of Skendleby, Lincs, by the Priory of Bardney (Lincoln, Ep. Reg. f. ~4, Chandler, 16), on 14 June 1430, may also have been our Waynflete. There was, however, another William Waynflete, who was instituted rector of Wroxhall, Somerset, on 17 May 1433 (Wells, Ep. Reg. Stafford), and was dead when his successor was appointed on 18 November 1436 (Wells, Ep. Reg. Stillington). A successor to the William Waynflete at the King's Hall was admitted on 3 April 1434.
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