[8] In a Consistory that was held at Orvieto on 23 March (or 12 April), 1281, Jean Cholet was one of seven prelates raised to the dignity of cardinal by Pope Martin IV (Simon de Brion).

On 7 May, the famous Sicilian Vespers began in Palermo, resulting in the loss of the island, a papal fief, by King Charles I.

On 5 June the Pope appointed a Legate in the Kingdom of Sicily, Cardinal Gerardo Bianchi, and ordered him to get King Charles to abandon the plan of trial by combat.

[12] On 18 November 1282, therefore, Pope Martin IV opened proceedings against King Pedro of Aragon, because he had invaded the territory of Sicily and was usurping the crown.

[13] The proceedings were concluded by 21 March 1283, when Pope Martin publicly deposed King Pedro and released all of his subjects from allegiance to him.

In 1282 and 1283 King Edward, too, was fully engaged in the full-scale conquest and subjugation of Wales; it was not until 11 December 1282 that Llywelyn was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge.

Edward did have time, however, to order his agents in Aquitaine not to permit the two combatants to engage in their duel in Bordeaux (which had been the proposed site), or anywhere else in his realm.

[17] On 4 May 1283, Cardinal Cholet, papal Legate to France, was issued a mandate to correct certain statutes enacted by Archbishop Jean de Montsoreau of Tours (1271-1285) in his provincial council of 1282.

[19] On 27 August 1283, he was granted the faculty of transferring the "vacant" throne of Aragon and the County of Barcelona to one of the sons of King Philip of France.

[24] Cardinal Jean Cholet was also given legatine authority over the orders of friars, both generally at his appointment as Legate in the Kingdom of France,[25] and as part of his commission to preach the plenary indulgence to all those who fought alongside Charles of Valois for the Crown of Aragon against Peter III.

By 5 May 1284, Cardinal Cholet had accumulated the following 'provinces' in his Legatine commission: France, Navarre, Aragon, Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, Lyon, Besançon, Vienne, Tarentaise, Ebrudun, Liège, Metz, Verdun, and Tulle.

This act earned Charles the satirical nickname roi du chapeau or Cárles, rey del Xapeu ('king of the hat'), implying that he was no properly crowned king, merely a creature of the Papacy.

[32] But, in an ironic twist, Charles' father, Philip III, died of dysentery in Perpignan, the capital of his ally James II of Majorca, on 5 October 1285.

The Conclave began in April, in the papal palace at Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill, where Pope Honorius IV (Giacomo Savelli) had died.

Only one cardinal stayed on in the papal palace, and when winter caused the pestilence to abate, the surviving cardinals returned — Latino Malabranca, Bentivenga de Bentivengis, Girolamo Masci, Bernard de Languissel, Matteo Rosso Orsini, Giacomo Colonna, and Benedetto Caetani.

On 22 February 1288, they happily elected the cardinal who had stayed at his station, Girolamo Masci d' Ascoli, O.Min., Suburbicarian Bishop of Palestrina, who took the name Nicholas IV.

[37] He wrote on 5 March to Cardinal John of S. Cecilia, directing him to assist Master Galienus de Pisis in finding a quiet place of retirement at Villa Sancti Marcelli, near Paris.

On 29 February 1292, he was present at a Consistory that took place in Rome at Santa Maria Maggiore to sign a bull granting privileges to the Hospital of Macadura in the diocese of Piacenza.

[41] It was perhaps around this time that Cardinal Cholet commissioned a series of frescoes for his titular church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere from Pietro Cavallini (1259 – c. 1330), who was also working on the mosaics at S. Maria Transtiberim.

[42] Pope Nicholas IV died in Rome at his residence at Santa Maria Maggiore on Holy Saturday, April 4, 1292.

[43] At the time of his death, there were twelve living cardinals, according to the Subdeacon of the Holy Roman Church, Giacopo Caetani Stefaneschi, who was present at the events.