Henry Beaufort was made a cardinal 600 years ago this week: May 1426.
If you start your pilgrimage at Southwark Cathedral you see his shield with its red cardinal’s hat in the south transept.
But if you are setting out from Winchester you find his magnificent tomb alongside St Swithun’s shrine. Bishop Beaufort is depicted wearing his hat.
The broad-brimmed and low-crowned red hat, or galero, dates from the 13th century and was originally a pilgrim hat to shade one’s head from the sun.
Henry Beaufort had royal blood but was barred from the line of succession due to having been born out of wedlock. However, he was Chancellor three times and in office when Henry V won at Agincourt.
Also significant was his concurrent appointment as Bishop of Winchester. The Winchester Diocese embraced Southwark and Bishop Beaufort lived for over forty years at Winchester Palace next to Southwark Cathedral -then known as Southwark Priory.
In 1424 Beaufort presided at the wedding of his niece Joan to the King of Scotland at the priory. The wedding breakfast was next door in the bishop’s great hall whose remains can be seen in Clink Street.
But Beaufort was still not a cardinal. The Archbishop of Canterbury was against the Bishop of Winchester having such a status and Henry V had feared that the wealthy and dominant bishop might become a second Becket.
It may not have helped that Beaufort had gone on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in preference to attending the King’s wedding at Troyes Cathedral in France.
Bishop Henry’s diplomatic letters to Henry V were sometimes composed by his cousin Thomas Chaucer who was constable of an episcopal residence and acted as his diocesan agent. Thomas, who was also close to the King, was son of Geoffrey Chaucer.
The nomination by Pope Martin on 24 May 1426 was early in Henry VI’s reign. But it was not until the following year that Bishop Beaufort received official promotion .
In March 1427 he landed in Calais to be unexpectedly welcomed by a messenger from Rome confirming his elevation. Three weeks later, on the Feast of The Annunciation 25 March, he went to the town’s Church of Notre Dame to be presented at last with the red hat.
***There has been a mistaken belief that Beaufort was present at Joan of Arc’s trial and death. As a result Winchester Cathedral’s St Joan statue looks towards the Beaufort tomb. The bishop also lived at Farnham Castle (on the Pilgrims’ Way) which led to the decision in 1929 to dedicate the town’s Roman Catholic church to St Joan.
