LIVES OF THE BISHOPS OF EXETER

JOHN CATTERICK. - This distinguished ecclesiastic (perhaps a native of Catterick in Yorkshire), after filling the office of Apostolic Notary and Archdeacon of Surrey, and after serving King Henry IV. as ambassador to France in 1409 (Rymer's 'Foedera,' vol. viii. p. 585), was provided whilst agent at the Roman court to the see of St. David by Pope John XXIII. on 27th April, 1414, and the temporalities of which were restored to him on 2nd June following. The same pontiff on 1st February next ensuing translated him to the see of Lichfield and Coventry. Within two years later, King Henry V. sent him as his ambassador to the Council of Constance, and so honoured him with his confidence as to appoint him one of the executors of his will. When the business of the council was over he accompanied Pope Martin V. towards Rome, and whilst the Papal court made some stay at Florence, intelligence reached His Holiness of the death of our aged Bishop Stafford, and he immediately nominated Dr, Catterick to the vacant see of Exeter, and on the same day (20th November) William Heyworth, abbot of St. Albans (not James or John Cary, as Godwin supposes), to Lichfield and Coventry. But our prelate never lived to see his new diocese: attacked by a mortal illness he departed this life on the 28th of the following month (December), 1419, and his remains were deposited under the central dome of the Franciscan Church de Santa Croce at Florence. A beautiful model of his white marble slab there, representing the bishop in his pontificals, has been brought over by Archdeacon Bartholomew very recently, and deposited in our chapterhouse. The legend is, - "Hic jacet Dominus Joannes Cattrick, Episcopus quondam Exoniensis, Ambassiator Serenissimi Domini Regis Angliæ, qui obiit xxviii die Decembris, anno Dni. MCCCCXIX. Cujus animæ propitietur Deus." Lassells, in his Voyage to Italy, 1650, describes the arms on the monument as "Sable, three Cats argent;" so that the arms attributed to him by Hoker and Izacke, viz. " Argent, on a Fess engrailed sable, three Trefoils or," must be rejected; they also bury him at Avignon. [Izacke dubs him Bishop of Chichester; Westcote ('Survey,' p. 168) omits him altogether in his catalogue of the bishops of Exeter; and Sir William Pole translates him from Chester hither, and buries him in our Cathedral! ('Description of Devon,' p. 30.)

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