Caunton, Richard
CAUNTON, RICHARD
Papal chaplain, English royal servant; b. Pembroke-shire, Wales; d. June or July, 1465. He became principal of Haberdash Hall, Oxford, in 1428, and by 1450 was a doctor of canon and civil law. He held a number of livings, mostly in southwest Wales, and was archdeacon of Salisbury from 1446 to 1465, and of Saint David's from 1459 to 1465. Richard was king's clerk under Henry VI in 1437 and was probably appointed king's proctor at Rome in 1441, a position he held for many years. He was also employed on a number of royal embassies to France (1439), to Denmark (1449), and to Poland, Denmark, Prussia, and the Hanse towns in 1464. He became a clerk of the Apostolic camera in 1443 and was a papal chaplain by 1453. Between 1442 and 1446 he was proctor at Rome for a number of English bishops, and in December 1445 acted as the envoy of eugene iv to King Henry.
Bibliography: a.b. emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59), 1:373–374. c. l. scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, 2 v. (New York 1923) v.1. e. yardley, Menevia Sacra, ed. f. green (London 1927).
[g. williams]