John Alcock ( – 1 October 1500) was an English churchman,

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...

and

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

Biography

Alcock was born at

Beverley Beverley is a market and minster town and a civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, of which it is the county town. The town centre is located south-east of York's centre and north-west of City of Hull. The town is known ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions hav ...

, son of Sir William Alcock, Burgess of

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-eas ...

, and was educated at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. In 1461 he was made dean of St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, and his subsequent promotion was rapid in both church and state. In the following year he was made

Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. As a judge, the Master of ...

,Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 88 and in 1470 was sent as ambassador to the Crown Court of Castile. He was nominated to the see of Rochester on 8 January 1472, was consecrated

Bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury. The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was fou ...

on 15 MarchFryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 268 and was successively translated to the

see of Worcester The Diocese of Worcester forms part of the Church of England (Anglican) Province of Canterbury in England. The diocese was founded around 679 by St Theodore of Canterbury at Worcester to minister to the kingdom of the Hwicce, one of the many ...

on 15 July 1476Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 280 and the see of Ely on 6 October 1486.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 245 He was the first president of the

Council of the Marches The Court of the Council in the Dominion and Principality of Wales, and the Marches of the same, commonly called the Council of Wales and the Marches () or the Council of the Marches, was a regional administrative body based in Ludlow Castle wi ...

in Wales from 1473 to 1500. He twice held the office of

, once from June 1475 to September 1475 and then again from October 1485 to March 1487. Alcock was one of the leading pre-

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

divines; he was a man of deep learning and also of great proficiency as an architect. Besides founding a charity at Beverley and a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary sch ...

, he restored many churches and colleges; but his greatest achievement was the building of

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes f ...

, which he established on the site of the former Convent of St Radegund. Alcock was appointed to the Council in 1470 and became Master of the Rolls in 1471, soon after being appointed tutor to

King Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

's eldest son, Prince Edward. After the King's death he was with Prince Edward when he was intercepted by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, at

Stony Stratford Stony Stratford is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Historically it was a market town on the important route from London to Chester (Watling Street, now the A5). It is also the name of a civil parish with a town cou ...

. Alcock was arrested and removed from office but soon rejoined the council. He was with King Richard III when he entered

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as ...

in August 1483 and was a member of the English delegation that met the Scots at

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of R ...

. Later Alcock was one of several clerics who openly canvassed the proposition that Henry Tudor marry

Elizabeth of York Elizabeth of York (11 February 1466 – 11 February 1503) was Queen of England from her marriage to King Henry VII on 18 January 1486 until her death in 1503. Elizabeth married Henry after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which mar ...

. Appointed temporary Lord Chancellor he opened King Henry VII's first Parliament on 7 November 1485 and became one of the new king's most trusted servants. Alcock died on 1 October 1500 and lies buried in the Alcock Chantry in Ely Cathedral.

Princes in the Tower

The novelist Valerie Anand, a believer in the innocence of

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...

in the matter of The

Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower refers to the apparent murder in England in the 1480s of the deposed King Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. These two brothers were the only sons of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville su ...

, points out that Alcock, the tutor of

Edward V Edward V (2 November 1470 – mid-1483)R. F. Walker, "Princes in the Tower", in S. H. Steinberg et al, ''A New Dictionary of British History'', St. Martin's Press, New York, 1963, p. 286. was ''de jure'' King of England and Lord of Ireland fr ...

, never quarrelled with Richard III, either publicly or privately, but chose to "continue to work serenely beside Richard". This would have been unthinkable if Alcock had any reason at all to suspect that King Richard had done any harm to his nephew Edward.

Writings

Alcock's published writings, most of which are extremely rare, are: ''Mons Perfectionis, or the Hill of Perfection'' (London, 1497); ''Gallicontus Johannis Alcock episcopi Eliensis ad frates suos curatas in sinodo apud Barnwell'' (1498), a good specimen of early English printing and quaint illustrations; ''The Castle of Labour'', translated from the French (1536), and various other tracts and homilies.See J. Bass Mullinger's ''History of the University of Cambridge'', vol. i.

Citations

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alcock, John 1430s births 1500 deaths People from Beverley Lord chancellors of England Bishops of Ely Bishops of Worcester Bishops of Rochester 15th-century English Roman Catholic bishops Masters of the Rolls People educated at Beverley Grammar School Deans of St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster Founders of colleges of the University of Cambridge