Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reade, Robert
READE, ROBERT (d. 1415), bishop of Chichester, was a Dominican friar and master of arts who, on 9 Sept. 1394, was papally provided to the bishopric of Waterford and Lismore. He was translated by the pope to Carlisle, and received the temporalities of that see in March 1396. On 5 Oct. of the same year he was again translated by a papal bull to Chichester, and received the temporalities on 6 May 1397. Reade was a trier of petitions in the parliament of September 1397, and swore to observe the statutes then made (Rolls of Parliament, iii. 348, 355). He was one of the counsellors whom Edmund of Langley, duke of York, consulted as to opposing Henry of Lancaster in August 1399. In the first parliament of Henry IV he assented to the imprisonment of Richard II (ib. iii. 427). In 1404 he was again a trier of petitions, and in 1406 was a witness to the entail of the crown (ib. iii. 546, 582). During the reign of Henry IV Reade is occasionally mentioned as attending the council (Nicolas, Proc. Privy Council, i. 156, ii. 6, 98). He died in June 1415. His will, dated 10 Aug. 1414, was proved on 6 July 1415. His register, which begins on 10 Feb. 1396–7 and ends 14 April 1414, is the oldest of the ‘Chichester Episcopal Registers’ now preserved. Some notes from it are given in the ‘Sussex Archæological Collections’ (xvii. 197–9). The author of the ‘Annales Ricardi Secundi’ (p. 243), in recording Reade's action in August 1399, says he was ‘irreprehensibilis et sine querela,’ meaning that he had not been implicated in the political intrigues of 1397. There does not seem to be any evidence as to whether he was related to his predecessor, William Rede or Reade [q. v.]
[Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiæ Angl. i. 244, ii. 236; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hib. i. 5; Godwin, De Præsulibus, p. 508, ed. Richardson; Sussex Archæological Collections, xvii. 197–9; other authorities quoted.]