Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stanbury, John
STANBURY, STANBERY, or STANBRIDGE, JOHN (d. 1474), bishop of Hereford, was second son of Walter Stanbury of Morwenstow, Cornwall, by his wife Cicely (Visit. Cornwall, Harl. Soc. p. 213). He entered the Carmelite order, and was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, whence he graduated D.D. (Boase, Reg. Coll. Exon. pp. lxix, 367). He subsequently gained great reputation by his lectures at Oxford, and before 1440 he became confessor to Henry VI. In that year he was nominated first provost of Eton College, in the foundation of which he had advised Henry; but he never took possession of this post, and the first actual provost was Henry Sever [q. v.] In 1446 Stanbury was nominated by the king to the bishopric of Norwich, but the pope set aside the appointment. On 4 March 1447–8, however, he was papally provided to the see of Bangor, being consecrated on 20 June following. He seems to have shared the unpopularity of Henry VI's ministers, and his name occurs in a song used by Cade's followers in 1450 (Stow's ‘Memoranda’ apud Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, Camden Soc. p. 100). He is probably to be distinguished from the John Stanbury who was vicar of Barnstaple from 1451 to 1460 (Chanter, Barnstaple, p. 93). On 7 Feb. 1452–3 he was translated by papal bull to the see of Hereford, and was enthroned on 25 April following. Between 1453 and 1457 he was frequently present at the council board (Acts P. C., ed. Nicolas, vol. vi. passim). He took the Lancastrian side during the wars of the roses, and was captured at the battle of Northampton on 19 July 1460 and imprisoned for a time in Warwick Castle. He died in the Carmelite house at Ludlow on 11 May 1474, and was buried in Hereford Cathedral, where a beautifully carved alabaster monument with an inscription (printed by Godwin) was erected over his tomb. During some architectural alterations in 1844 his episcopal ring and the vestments in which he was buried were discovered (Archæologia, xxxi. 249–53).
Stanbury, who is described as ‘facile princeps omnium Carmelitarum sui temporis,’ is credited by Bale and subsequent writers with twenty-seven separate works, mostly on the canon law, but including also sermons, lectures at Oxford, and theological treatises. One, entitled ‘Expositio in symbolum fidei,’ was an edition of a work written by Richard Ullerston [q. v.] in 1409, and completed by Stanbury in 1463. None of these, however, are known to be extant.
[Bale's Heliades, ff. 37 b, 92, and Cat. Scriptt. Ord. Carmel. f. 211, extant in Harl. MS. 3838 (a copy of the original Sloane MS. now in the Bodleian); William of Worcester ap. Letters and Papers of Henry VI (Rolls Ser.), ii. 770; Rymer's Fœdera, ix. 195, 791, 817; Harpsfield's Hist. Eccl. Anglic. xv. 25; Leland's Liber de Scriptt. cp. 572; Possevino's Apparatus Sacer, i. 940; Arnoldus Bostius' Lit. de Scriptt. Ord. Carmel. cp. 40; Allegre de Casanate, p. 361; Lezana's Annales Carmel. iv. 869; Lelong's Bibl. Sacra, p. 971; Villiers de St. Etienne's Bibl. Carmel. ii. 102–4; Pits, De Angl. Scriptt. p. 665; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.; Fuller's Worthies, 1811, i. 278; Leland's Itinerary, 1745, viii. 41, 53; Rawlinson's Hereford Cathedral, pp. 40, 198–9; Duncumb's Hereford, i. 480–1, 568; Willis's Survey of Bangor, pp. 90–2; Harwood's Al. Eton. p. i; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl.; Godwin, De Præsulibus Angliæ, pp. 491–2.]