Diplomat
On 13 August 1451 Cardinal d'Estouteville was sent to France as legate by Pope Nicholas V, at the instigation of the Duc de Bourbon, to make peace between King Charles VII of France and England; at the same time Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa was sent to England on the same mission. Both failed.
At the behest of the Inquisitor General Jean Brehal, Estouteville undertook an ex officio revision of the trial of Joan of Arc. He afterwards reformed the statutes of the University of Paris, issuing his decree on 1 June 1452. He shortened the course leading to the Doctorate in theology from fifteen to fourteen years, and he removed the requirement that Doctors of Medicine be in holy orders. He then presided over the Assembly of the French clergy which met at Bourges in July and August 1452 to discuss the implementation of the Pragmatic Sanction. He finally returned to Rome on 3 January 1453, where he passed almost all the rest of his life.
D'Estouteville, appointed Legate to the King of France, set out from Rome for France on 16 May 1454, with permission to be outside the Curia for six months; he returned to Rome on 12 September 1455 after sixteen months absence. His official mission was to attempt to persuade Charles VII to join in yet another crusade, the one that Nicholas V had tried to launch on 30 September 1453, following the Fall of Constantinople.
On his return, he built as his residence the Palazzo Apollinare to the west of the Church of S. Agostino and adjacent to the Church of S. Apollinare.
D'Estouteville participated in the papal conclave of 4–10 March 1447 that elected Pope Nicholas V. He was absent from Rome, however, during the sede vacante of 24 March–8 April 1455, prior to the election of Pope Calixtus III. On 20 February 1456 he was one of the cardinals who subscribed the bull of Pope Calixtus III which created Rodrigo Borgia a cardinal.
D'Estouteville took part in the Conclave of 6–19 August 1458 and was a candidate for the papacy in the Conclave. He was able to command six votes out of the nineteen participants, but he was defeated by Cardinal Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini of Siena, who chose the name Pope Pius II.
In 1458 Cardinal d'Estouteville was asked by the Teutonic Knights to be their Protector at the Roman Curia, an honor and office which he accepted. D'Estouteville also was cardinal protector of the Augustinian Hermits. In January 1459 he accompanied Pope Pius II in his journey to Mantua to meet with the princes of Europe to arrange for a crusade against the Ottoman Turks.
He became Cardinal Bishop of Porto-Santa Rufina on 19 March 1459. He was named the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia on 26 October 1461, and became the Dean of the College of Cardinals after the death of Cardinal Bessarion on 18 November 1472.
He took part in the Conclave of 27/28–30 August 1464, in which Pope Paul II (Pietro Barbo of Venice) was elected in the first Scrutiny.
On 11 January 1468 the Cardinal was elected Chamberlain of the College of Cardinals for a one-year term. This was a burdensome office, requiring the holder to see to it that monies due to the College of Cardinals from all sources, including the Pope, were collected, and to see to it that they were disbursed to the cardinals who were in the Roman Curia.
Pope Paul died on 26 July 1471, and Cardinal d'Estouteville immediately began campaigning openly for the papacy. He wrote to Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, seeking his support and that of the four cardinals who were 'Friends of the Prince'. But there were other candidates, notably Cardinal Bessarion, who was being supported by Venice. Eighteen cardinals, out of the twenty-five living cardinals, attended the Conclave, which began on 6 August 1471. In the second Scrutiny, on 9 August, Cardinal Francesco della Rovere was elected with thirteen of the eighteen votes. D'Estouteville had received six votes. Della Rovere chose as his papal name Sixtus IV.
On 25 August 1471, Cardinal d'Estouteville, availing himself of the traditional privilege of the Bishops of Ostia, consecrated Cardinal Francesco della Rovere, O.F.M.Conv., who had been elected Pope Sixtus IV, a bishop. The Coronation took place on the same day on the front steps of the Vatican Basilica by Cardinal Rodrigo Borja, the senior Cardinal Deacon.
The Cardinal also owed a vineyard near the Porta S. Maria del Popolo. On 15 May 1472 he gave a luncheon there in honor of Cardinal Rodrigo de Borja, who was leaving Rome on a mission to Catalonia and Spain. Earlier that day, the seals of the Chamberlain of the Sacred College were transferred from Cardinal Borjia, who was Chamberlain for the year, to Cardinal d'Estouteville, who was to fill out the rest of his term. On 12 October 1472, he was appointed in Consistory to be Legate in France.
He was appointed Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church (S.R.E. Camerarius) by Pope Sixtus IV in 1477, in succession to Cardinal Latino Orsini, who had died on 11 August 1477. D'Estouteville held the position until his death; he was the last non-Italian cardinal to hold the office for nearly five hundred years, until Jean-Marie Villot in 1970.
