# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cobham, Thomas de

​COBHAM, THOMAS de (d. 1327), bishop of Worcester, was a member of the well-known Kentish family of Cobham (Mon. Malmese. Vit. Edw. II, p. 197). He graduated in three universities in arts at Paris, in canon law at Oxford, and in theology at Cambridge (Annales Paulini, p. 274). It has also been erroneously stated that he was chancellor of Cambridge (note to Godwin, De Præsulibus, ii. 42), through a confusion with another Thomas de Cobham, who held that post in 1422 (Graduati Cantabrigienses, Append, p. 3 ; Le Neve, Fasti, iii. 599, ed. Hardy). Cobham was a secular clergy-man and was highly reputed, by the accordant testimony of contemporaries, as a man of eminent learning and unblemished character, so that he came to be known by the distinguishing name of ' the good clerk ' (Bale, Scriptt. Brit. Cat. iv. 98, p. 379). He received preferment in seven dioceses. In January 1287-8 the Archbishop of Canterbury instituted him to the benefice of Hollingbourn in Kent ; in 1299 he was presented to that of Boxley in the same county (Tanner, Bibl. Brit. p. 172), as well as to the prebend of Fiona Parvain Hereford Cathedral (Le Neve, i. 521). On 13 Dec. of the same year he received the prebend of Wedmore the second at Wells (Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 532 ; Tanner). In 1301 he is mentioned as arch-deacon of Lewes (Wharton; Le Neve, i. 262), and in 1306 as canon of London (Rymer, Fœdera, ii. 992, ed. 1705), where he held the prebend of Ealdstreet in St. Paul's Cathedral (Ls NEVE, ii. 385). He was made precentor of York on 14 July 1312 (Wharton), and given the prebend of Fenton in that cathedral on 6 Dec. of the same year (Le Neve, iii. 184). These last-named preferments, if not also his stall at Hereford, Cobham retained in plurality with his canonry of St. Paul's, which was in his time one of small value. He has also been generally described as sub-dean of Salisbury, but this statement is plainly due to a confusion with Thomas de Chabham [q. v.], who held this office early in the thirteenth century.
Cobham's ability was recognised in his employment by Edward I on a mission to the pope in 1306 (Rymer, l. c.), and by his son on a mission to the king of France in 1312 (ib. iii. 313). He was as yet only in sub-deacon's orders, when in May 1313, immediately after the funeral of Archbishop Robert Winchelsey, the monks of Canterbury proceeded to elect him as his successor. The election took place on 28 May (or 23 as one authority gives the date, ap. Godwin, i. 103 note 6), Cobham being at the moment at Paris, engaged on the king's business (A. Murimuth, Chron. p. 18, ed. Hog, 1846), or, according to others, ' regent' at the university (Godwin, i. 103). Thither a deputation of the monks followed him, and persuaded him to accept the election. Edward II was also in Paris, and, it is said, allowed Cobham to be presented to him as elect on 9 June (Wharton). But he had another candidate in his mind in the person of Walter Reynolds, bishop of Worcester and chancellor of the realm 'a mere creature of court favour 7 (Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, 251, ii. 365, Library ed.) ; and it transpired conveniently that Clement V had reserved to himself the collation of the archbishopric on 27 April, just before Winchelsey's death (Wilkins, Concilia Magnæ Britannia, ii. 424 et seq.) His bull notifying this fact was publicly read in St. Paul's Cathedral on 9 July (Ann. Paul. p. 274). Another bull, dated 1 Oct. in the same year, quashed the election of Cobham and nominated Reynolds, the document (printed in Rymer's 'Fœdera,' iii. 439 et seq.) expressly declaring that Cobham's rejection was not caused by any personal demerit, but by consideration of the larger interests of the English church. Others said that the pope was not uninfluenced by a present of thirty-two thousand marks, with which Edward had supported his application (T. BURTON, Chron. Monast. de Melsa, ii. 329, ed. Bond, 1867). What contemporaries thought of the proceeding is shown well enough by the comments, for instance, of the monk of Malmesbury (Vita Edw. II, p. 197).
In the meantime Cobham had visited Avignon, and seemed disposed to press his suit at the papal court. Unwilling, however, to offend both the king and the pope, and soothed perhaps by the promise that his patience should be rewarded in due time, he soon renounced his claim to the archbishopric. Not long afterwards Bishop Maidstone, Reynolds's successor at Worcester, died, and John XXII, who had, as usual, made 'provision' for the next voidance of the see, conferred it upon Cobham (A. Murimuth, p. 25). Cobham signified his assent on 31 March 1317 (Godwin, ii. 42), and was consecrated at Avignon on 22 May (Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, p. 51). But he was not enthroned at Worcester until 28 Oct. 1319 (Ann. Paul. p. 287). He died at his castle of Hartlebury (Rymer, Fœdera, iv. 331) on 26 Aug. (Ann. Paul. p. 337) or 27 (Wharton; Stubbs, Reg. l.c.) 1327, and was buried in his own cathedral.
Cobham's memory is preserved at Oxford by a library which he founded. About 1320 he made preparations for the building of a room over the old congregation house on
​the north side of the chancel of St. Mary's Church, and he bequeathed his books to the university to be deposited there. His executors, however, in order to defray the charges of the bishop's funeral and his outstanding debts, pawned the library. Then Adam de Brome, at their suggestion, redeemed the collection and deposited it in Oriel College. But after a while, about 1337, the scholars of the university, headed by the commissary (or vice-chancellor), deeming the books their property, carried them away by force and placed them in the chamber provided by Cobham (see a document in the Oriel muniments, printed by C. L. Shadwell, in the Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society, i. 62-5, 1885). The claim of the university to possess and regulate the library was declared in a statute, and ratified in 1367 (Anstey, Munimenta Academica, i. 226-8, Rolls Series, 1868); but the dispute between the college and the university was not finally settled until 1410 (Shadwell, l.c. p. 65). Meanwhile the books remained in St. Mary's Church until they were incorporated with the collection of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, which afterwards came to form the nucleus of the Bodleian Library (compare Wood, Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford (Colleges and Halls), ed. Gutch, p. 133; Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 1, 1868).
[Annales Paulini, in the Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, ed. Stubbs, vol. i., Rolls Series; Vita Edwardi II, by a monk of Malmesbury, in the same collection, vol. ii.; Trokelowe's Annales, ed. Eiley, pp. 81, 82; Walsingham's Hist. Angl., ed. Riley, i. 136, 137, mainly derived from Trokelowe; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 532 et seq.; Godwin, De Praesulibus, i. 103, ii. 42 et seq.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 1 72.]
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