Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walton, John (d.1490?)
WALTON, JOHN (d. 1490?), archbishop of Dublin, was probably the John Walton, regular canon of Osney, who graduated B.A. at Oxford on 6 June 1450, and D.D. on 24 May 1463 (Boase, Reg. Univ. Oxon. i. 11). He is confused by Tanner with John Walton (fl. 1410) [q. v.], the poet, and with John de Waltham, subdean of York in 1384 [see under Waltham, John de, d. 1395], and it is also improbable that he was the John Walton who was appointed vicar of Birch-magna on 3 July 1426 and vicar of Roding on 25 Jan. 1437. In 1452 he was made abbot of Osney, the temporalities being restored to him on 1 Nov. in that year (cf. Cartul. of S. Frideswide, i. 416). D'Alton says he was eighteenth abbot of Osney, and gives him an alternate name, Mounstern; Dugdale gives the name of the abbot at this time as Multon, and says he died in 1472, the date of Walton's election as archbishop of Dublin. Possibly he is the John Walton whose grant of the chantry of Clipston on 19 Dec. 1456 was confirmed by Edward IV on 18 Dec. 1461 (Cal. Patent Rolls, Edward IV, i. 57). Walton paid heavy fees to the papal court for his election to the archbishopric (Brady, Episcopal Succession, i. 325). He was consecrated in England in 1472, but does not appear to have obtained the restitution of his temporalities until 1477. In 1478 he procured from the Irish parliament the restitution of several manors alienated by his predecessors in the archbishopric, Richard Talbot [q. v.] and Michael Tregury [q. v.] During his tenure of that office Sixtus IV sanctioned the establishment of a university at Dublin (De Burgo, Hibernia Dominicana, p. 193), but the design was not carried out. Walton abstained from politics, being overshadowed by his suffragan William Sherwood [q. v.], bishop of Meath, and in 1484, being then blind and infirm, he resigned the archbishopric. He retired to his manor of Swords, the possession of which was assured to him by an act of parliament in the following year. On St. Patrick's day (17 March) 1489 he emerged to preach a sermon before the lord deputy in St. Patrick's cathedral. He died soon afterwards; his will, undated, is among the manuscripts of Trinity College, Dublin. He made various bequests to Osney Abbey, where he desired to be buried in the event of his dying in England.
[Authorities cited; Book of Howth, pp. 399, 410; Ware's Ireland, ed. Harris; Cotton's Fasti, ii. 17; D'Alton's Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin, pp. 166–70; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland; Lascelles's Liber Munerum Hiberniæ; Monck Mason's Hist. of St. Patrick's.]