Benedict Nichols
Nichols is recorded as holding the benefice of Conington, in Cambridgeshire,[1] and immediately before becoming a bishop was rector of Stalbridge in Dorset and a canon of Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire.[2] Nichols was consecrated on 12 August 1408, and by October 1409, with the English forces having strengthened their hold on Wales, it was possible for him to be enthroned at Bangor Cathedral.[4] One writer later noted that Nichols "acquired dishonorable celebrity in the early period of the reformation, from being one of the bishops who assisted the archbishop of Canterbury in the condemnation of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, for heresy".[5] Early in 1415, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, commissioned Nichols to lay the foundation stone for Sheen Priory.[10] In 1431, Nichols confirmed that the vicars choral of St David's Cathedral were to sit and stand in the choir in accordance with the Sarum Use.