William Waynflete (born William Patten) (c. 1398 – 11 August
1486), was Bishop of Winchester from 1447 to 1486, and Lord
Chancellor of England from 1456 to 1460. He is best remembered
as the founder of Magdalen College, Oxford. 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 April
21 1420 and subdeacon on January 21 1421; and as William
Barbour, otherwise Waynflete of Spalding, was ordained deacon on
March 18 1421, and priest on January 21 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 March 6
1428 (Exch. Q. R. Bdle. 346, no. 31