worthy was instituted by Archbishop Morton, June 23, 1488. He became Dean of Arches, and also held a Canonry at Wingham. He resigned this benefice in 1492.
   (16) RICHARD MARTIN (styled "a Bishop in the Universal Church") was instituted May 31, 1492, upon Hervy's resignation, and held this benefice for nearly seven years, until his death. Twenty years before, he had obtained from the Pope a dispensation enabling him to hold three incompatible benefices in plurality, and had in consequence held the rectory of St. Peter in Guisnes from Feb. 1472-3 to Sept. 1475. This dispensation was probably obtained through Richard Martin's influence at the Court of King Edward IV. That monarch admitted him to be one of his Council of State in 1471 (11 Ed. IV), and appointed him, for life, Chancellor of the County of the King's Marches (Cancellarius Comitat' Reg' March'); at that time he was a Prebendary of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of London; four years later he became Chancellor (Cancellarius Regis), and in 1477 was made Chancellor of Ireland, for life, and Chaplain to the King. He obtained Prebendal Stalls at Hereford and Salisbury, in 1473; and was Archdeacon of Berks (1478), and of Hereford (1476). At the close of 

Edward's reign, in the twenty-second year thereof, he was consecrated Bishop of St. David's, and is then spoken of, on the Patent Roll, as "Cancellarius Regis." For some reason, probably political, on the usurpation of the crown by Richard the Third, he did not retain the bishopric of St. David's, but seems to have acted henceforth as a suffragan helpful to other Bishops. Bishop Martin held the vicarage of Lydd from June 1474 until 1498. He enjoyed the rectory of Woodchurch during some years; but he resigned it, in 1492, for this benefice of Ickham. He was Custos of the Franciscan House of Grey Friars or Minorites in Canterbury, of which he was a benefactor, and there he was buried in November 1498. Dugdale and subsequent writers have erroneously stated that this bishop of St. David's died in or about 1483; some actually describe this "large marble tomb before the crucifix nearest the north door" of St. Paul's Cathedral. His continuous occupation of preferments in Kent, from 1474 to 1498, disproves such erroneous statements. Somner and H. Wharton did not know that this Richard Martin was consecrated to St. David's;