The importance of the chapel architecturally, dominating the quadrangle as it does and absorbing the admiration of the visitor or the dweller in those courts, is indicative of the ecclesiastical aspect of the new foundation, which the great opponent of Wycliffe intended to revivify the Church by training secular priests of ability. This ecclesiastical aspect is still more prominent in the case of All Souls', which, like Magdalen, may fitly be described as a daughter of New College, so much do they both owe, as regards their rule and their architectural design, to the great foundation of Wykeham. The deterioration and ignorance of the parochial clergy were amongst the most serious symptoms of the decadence of the fifteenth century. Himself a Wykehamist and a successful ecclesiastical lawyer, the great Archbishop Chichele therefore followed Wykeham's example and founded a college which might help to educate and to increase the secular clergy. Out of the revenues of the suppressed alien priories he endowed a society consisting of a warden and forty fellows, of doctors and masters who were to study Philosophy, Theology and Law. His college was not, therefore, and happily is not (though now it takes its full share of educational work), a mere body of teachers, but of graduate students. The prominence given to the study of Law and Divinity resulted in a close connection with the public services which has always been maintained. But "All Souls'" was a chantry as well as a college. As head of the English Church and a responsible administrator of the Crown, Chichele had devoted all his powers to the prosecution of that war with France, for which Shakespeare, following Hall, has represented him as being responsible. The college is said to have been the Archbishop's expiation for the blood so shed. Whatever his motive, his object is stated clearly enough. It was to found a "College of poor and indigent clerks bounden with all devotion to pray for the Souls of the glorious memory of Henry V., lately King of England and France, the Duke of Clarence and the other lords and lieges of the realm of England, whom the havoc of that warfare between the two realms hath drenched with the bowl of bitter death, and also for the souls of all the faithful departed." Chichele had already undertaken the foundation of S. Bernard's College. He now (September 1437) purchased Bedford Hall, or Charleton's Inn, at the corner of Cat Street,[30] directly opposite the eastern end of S. Mary's Church. On this site, in the following February, was laid the foundation stone of the college afterwards incorporated under the title of "The Warden and All Soulen College," or "The Warden and College of All Faithful Souls deceased at Oxford." As Adam de Brome had persuaded Edward II. to be the foster-founder of Oriel, so Chichele asked Henry VI. to be the nominal founder of his college. The royal patronage proved advantageous in neither case.