Nicholas West

Nicholas West (1461 – 28 April 1533), was an English bishop and diplomatist, born at Putney, and educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1486. He also had periods of study at Oxford and Bologna.

He was soon ordained and appointed rector of Egglescliffe, Durham, receiving a little later two other livings and becoming chaplain to King Henry VII.

In 1509 Henry VIII appointed him dean of St. George's Chapel, Windsor (during which times its fan vaulting was completed), and in 1515 he was elected bishop of Ely. Prior to his elevation, West was (or was also) Archdeacon of Derby. West's long and successful career as a diplomatist began in 1502 through his friendship with Richard Foxe, bishop of Durham.

In the interests of Henry VII he visited the German king Maximilian I and George, Duke of Saxony; in 1506 he negotiated an important commercial treaty with Flanders, and he attempted to arrange marriages between the king's daughter Mary and the future emperor Charles V, and between the king himself and Charles's sister Margaret.

By Henry VIII, West was sent many times to Scotland and France. Occupied mainly during the years 1513 and 1514 with journeys to and from Scotland, he visited Louis XII of France in the autumn of 1514 and his successor Francis I in 1515.

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