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Santa Cecilia

ster; occupied the post from 1382 to the 1390's, even when King
Richard II tried to intrude one of his favourites.
In 1384, Pope Urban VI transferred the curia to Nocera, in Um-
bria; then there occurred the protest of five cardinals, who wrote a
letter against his cruel despotism; together with Cardinals Gentile
di Sangro, Ludovico Donato, O.F.M., Bartolomeo de Cogorno,
O.F.M., and Marino Giudice (signatories of the letter together with
Cardinal Easton), along with Cardinal Giovanni d'Amelia, he was
imprisoned in the Castle of Nocera Umbria on January 11, 1385;
there, they suffered torture, imprisonment as well as degradation
from the cardinalate; and all, except Cardinal Easton (because of the
intervention of King Richard II of England), were executed in
Genoa in December 1385 or January 11, 1386; he was released from
prison, by the intercession of King Carlo Durazzo of Naples, and
ordered to live in a Benedictine monastery as a simple monk, under
the custody of a French cleric of the Apostolic Chamber. Pope
Boniface IX restored his cardinalate on December 18, 1389, with the
title of S. Cecilia.

that Cardinal Langham died in 1396, must certainly due to a typographical
error in the text); Quinlan, Our English cardinals, including the English pope, p.
27, says that he accompanied Pope Gregory to Rome in 1377 and that two
years later, Easton was created cardinal priest of S. Cecilia. Schofield, The
English cardinals, p. 47, writes that he was created cardinal priest of S. Cecilia
on December 21, 1381. Williams, Lives of the English cardinals, I, 423, says that
he was created cardinal priest of S. Cecilia in September 1378). Isaacson, The
story of the English cardinals, p. 66, indicates that he was created cardinal in
1381, without mentioning his title; and on p. 72, Isaacson says that he was
restored to the cardinalate in 1389, without either mentioning his title. Lee,
in the only monographic biography of Cardinal Easton that has been writ-
ten, The most ungrateful Englishman, p. 222, “Cardinal of England or St
Cecilia”, indicates that it is erroneous to refer to him as cardinal priest of S.
Cecilia at the time of his elevation to the cardinalate in 1381, because that
title was occupied by Cardinal Bonaventura of Padua (Badoaro de Peraga,
O.E.S.A.) until his death in 1389. Lee adds, on p. 223, that until his downfall
in 1385, Cardinal Easton was known as the Cardinal of Norwich or the
Cardinal of England in the existing documentation, which he has consulted;
and that it was not until 1389, upon reinstatement by Pope Boniface IX, that
Cardinal Easton was called the Cardinal of S. Cecilia.

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