Christopher Bainbridge
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Christopher Bainbridge (1464? – 1514), Archbishop of York and Cardinal, came from a family with Westmorland roots. He was a maternal nephew of Thomas Langton, Bishop of Winchester, which may account for his charmed early life. He was granted an indult in 1479 which allowed him to hold church benefices while still unordained and under the age of 16, and another in 1482 that allowed him to hold more than one benefice concurrently. He was said to have been fifty years old at his death and must therefore have been born about 1464.
He was described as a magister, or scientist, by 1486; at Bologna he was admitted DCL in 1492; he was in Rome between 1492–1494. Appointed Provost of Queen's College, Oxford in 1496, and Master of the Rolls in 1504, he was incorporated at Lincoln's Inn on January 20, 1505. By 1497, he had become chaplain to Henry VII; in 1503 dean of York; in 1505 he was Dean of St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
Appointed Bishop of Durham on August 27, 1507, he was translated to York on September 22, 1508, a sign of the favour he enjoyed at court. On September 24, 1509, King Henry VIII (whose coronation he had attended) appointed Bainbridge to be his ambassador to Pope Julius II. Just at this time Julius had taken alarm at the invasion of Italy by Louis XII of France, and the support of England was therefore of great importance.
Julius left Rome to relieve Bologna, and was nearly taken prisoner in the war. A group of pro-French cardinals summoned a council in opposition to him at Pisa, which Julius opposed by calling another council at Ravenna, in the course of which he created (in March 1511) several new Cardinals, of which Bainbridge was one, with the title of "Cardinal of St. Praxed's".
Bainbridge was immediately sent with an army to lay siege to Ferrara, but the creation of the Holy League relieved the papacy of some pressure by involving Spain against the French forces. Pope Julius II was succeeded on his death by Leo X, who was initially willing to grant the title of Christianissimus Rex (Most Christian King) to Henry, after Francis had automatically forfeited the title by waging war on the Pope. However, Henry's making peace with France in 1514 probably ended these hopes.
Bainbridge died on July 14, 1514, having been poisoned by one of his own chaplains, Rinaldo de Modena. Rinaldo was imprisoned and confessed to the crime. He also implicated Silvester de Giglis, then Bishop of Worcester, as the instigator of the plot. De Giglis was the resident English ambassador at Rome, and regarded Bainbridge as a threat to his position: he also had sufficient power and influence to make Rinaldo retract his confession and have him killed in prison.
Richard Pace and John Clerk, the cardinal's executors, were eager to prosecute De Giglis, but he maintained that the priest was a madman whom he had dismissed from his own service some years before in England, and his defence was accepted as sufficient.
Bainbridge was buried at the English hospice in Rome, Italy, which later became the Venerable English College.
[edit] Reference
- Dictionary of National Biography, 1885.
[edit] External links
| Religious Posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: William Senhouse |
Bishop of Durham 1507–1508 |
Succeeded by: Thomas Ruthall |
| Preceded by: Thomas Savage |
Archbishop of York 1508–1514 |
Succeeded by: Thomas Cardinal Wolsey |
