ANDREWE, RICHARD

Dean of York, English royal servant; b. Adderbury, Oxfordshire; d. 1477. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he was a fellow (1421–33). A doctor of civil law in 1432, he practiced as a canon lawyer, becoming an official of the court of Canterbury (1439 and 1441), and chancellor of Abp. Henry chichele. He was a king's clerk as early as 1433. His reputation with King henry vi and the archbishop led to his nomination on May 20, 1438, as first warden of Chichele's new College of All Souls, Oxford, an office he held until 1442. He then became a king's secretary (1443–55). He served on many diplomatic missions, including the negotiations, in 1444, for Henry's marriage. His services were rewarded with appropriate preferment: he held several canonries at York, Salisbury, and Saint David's, and became archdeacon of Salisbury (1441–44) and of Buckingham (1447–49). Imposed on a reluctant chapter by king and pope, he became dean of York, serving from 1452 until June 2, 1477. His political career ended with the fall of Henry VI, but in his later years he acted as vicar-general of the archbishop of York. He founded chantries at Deddington, Oxfordshire, and Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, and gave a number of Canon Law books to All Souls and New College, Oxford.

Bibliography: Testamenta Eboracensia, 6 v. (Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53) v.3 (1865). a. j. otway–ruthven, The King's Secretary … in the XV Century (Cambridge, Eng. 1939). a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 1:34–35.

[c. d. ross]