William Hatteclyffe  William Hatteclyffe ("ca." 1417–1480), sometimes spelt in other ways, such as Hattclyff, Hatcliff, and even Atcliff, was an English physician, diplomat, and King's Secretary. Hatteclyffe was one of a clerical dynasty, and there are other men of the same name with whom he should not be confused, including the William Hatteclyffe (died 1518 or 1519) who was Clerk of Accounts in the household of Henry VII and Under-treasurer of Ireland, and his cousin Dr William Hatteclyffe, a 16th-century Rector of St Mary-at-Hill, London. Hatteclyffe was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he became a Fellow of Peterhouse in 1437 and a founding fellow of King's in 1441/42. In 1446 he was attending lectures in medicine at the University of Padua, where he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in March 1447. Returning to Cambridge, he is recorded as Bursar of King's later the same year. By November 1452 Hatteclyffe had been appointed as a physician to King Henry VI and was in receipt of a stipend of forty pounds a year. On 15 March 1454 he was ordered to attend the king during an illness, and by 1457 he was also physician to the king's consort, Margaret of Anjou. In 1456 he was a signatory of the so-called "alchemy petition" seeking a remedy for the king's ills. By 1461 Hatteclyffe had transferred his allegiance to the Yorkists, led by Edward, Duke of York, and after the Second Battle of St Albans of 17 February 1461, a disaster for the House of York, Hatteclyffe took ship for Ireland. His ship was captured by a French vessel, and he was held for ransom, but within a few days, in a speedy reversal of his fortunes, Warwick the Kingmaker had gained control of London and Westminster, and on 4 March 1461 he proclaimed the Duke of York king as Edward IV. The new king then provided funds from the Treasury for Hatteclyffe's ransom, and he was released. In January 1461/62 he was paid almost a year's stipend as king's physician, with effect from the previous March. In September 1464 King Edward IV sent Hatteclyffe on a diplomatic mission to Francis I, Duke of Brittany, and by January 1465/66 he had become King's Secretary.