Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Whelpdale, Roger
WHELPDALE, ROGER (d. 1423), bishop of Carlisle, was born at or near Greystoke in Cumberland, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow. In or before 1402 he was elected fellow of Queen's College, and in 1402–3 occurs in the ‘computus’ as junior bursar. In 1403 he served as senior proctor, and in 1404 was senior bursar at Queen's; on 15 April in that year he was elected provost (Wood, Colleges, ed. Gutch, p. 146), and on 20 Dec. following was ordained priest on the title of his provostship. In the college long roll for 1417–18 seventeen shillings and eightpence is entered as expended by him while prosecuting college business before the queen's council. In 1420 he became bishop of Carlisle, receiving back his temporalities on 17 March and making his profession of obedience in August. He resigned the provostship of Queen's on 4 Feb. 1420–1 (Wood). Whelpdale took no part in politics, and died on 4 Feb. 1422–3 at Carlisle Place, London, three years after his election, being buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His will dated 25 Jan. 1422–3 is at Lambeth (353 Chichele P. 1). He founded a chantry in Carlisle Cathedral for the souls of Sir Thomas Skelton and John Glaston, and bequeathed 20l. to the scholars of Oxford, and to Balliol College library some manuscripts and books, including St. Augustine's ‘De Civitate Dei,’ and treatises by Simon of Tournay [q. v.] and others, extant in Balliol Coll. MS. ccx; to Queen's College he also made bequests of books, vestments, and 10l. in money, besides establishing a fund of 36l. 13s. 4d. to be added to by subsequent benefactors.
Bale attributes to Whelpdale the authorship of various mathematical and theological works. A treatise ‘De Universalibus’ is extant in Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 12 B xix. 4, in Bodleian MS. Rawlinson C. 677 f. 3, and in the library of Worcester Cathedral; another, entitled ‘Problema super primum librum posteriorum,’ is extant in Magdalene College, Cambridge, MS. 47. Others mentioned by Leland and Bale have not been traced.
[Information kindly supplied by the Provost of Queen's; Bernard's Cat. MSS. Angliæ; Coxe's Cat. MSS. in Coll. Aulisque Oxon.; Leland's Comment.; Bale's Heliades in Harl. MS. 3838, and De Scriptt. vi. 29; Pits, p. 502; Fabricius, Bibl. Lat. Med. Ævi, vi. 340; Tanner's Bibl. p. 760; Godwin, De Præsulibus, ed. Richardson; Thomas Goodwin's Reign of Henry V, 1703, p. 359; Wood's Colleges, ed. Gutch, pp. 85, 98, 146, 150, 157, 159, 160, App. p. 36; Nicolson and Burn's Cumberland, ii. 249, 272, 363; Hutchinson's Cumberland, ii. 625; Jeffreson's Carlisle, 1838, pp. 202–3; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ed. Hardy, iii. 238, 480, 552.]