Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/259

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et Claus. Hib. p. 271). The chief work of the new ruler was the hasty completion of a dyke and wall to protect the boundary of the English pale, which he compelled the adjoining landowners to undertake. But the expense of such a policy seems to have been too great for King Henry to bear. He reverted to the old plan of governing Ireland cheaply if inefficiently through Norman Irish nobles. Kildare was relieved from his attainder and made lord deputy in August. This necessitated Deane's retirement. On 6 Aug. Walter, archbishop of Dublin, became chancellor in his stead. On 6 Oct. he received the temporalities of Bangor, a papal bull having ratified the much earlier election of the chapter. The date and place of his consecration and the names of the consecrating bishops are, however, unknown (Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Angl. p. 73). The next three years Deane actively occupied himself with the administration of his bishopric, and though he was still a member of the royal council and prior of Llanthony, his vigour and activity produced remarkable results. He found the see of Bangor in a very neglected condition: the cathedral and bishop's palace, destroyed by Owain Glyndwr, were still in ruins, and the possessions of the bishopric had been stolen by the great men of the neighbourhood. He at once set to work at building, and had completed the present choir of the cathedral, when he left the bishopric. His activity in vindicating lost rights of his see is illustrated by his success in winning back the right of the fisheries in the Skerries. He went in person to the island, and in his presence, and with the consent of all but one of his tenants, his servants caught on one day, 7 Oct. 1498, twenty-eight fishes. But the one objector, Sir William Griffith of Penrhyn, who had bought up most of the shares of the Skerries (Record of Carnarvon, p. 253), itself an old possession of the church of St. Daniel, sent his son and a body of armed men, who chased away the men of the bishop and stole the fish they had caught; but Deane compelled them to pay amends, and ultimately managed to establish his claim to the fisheries.

In August 1499 Bishop Blyth of Salisbury died, and on 7 Dec. of the same year the king granted his ‘faithful counsellor,’ the Bishop of Bangor, the custody of the temporalities and other properties of the see, for which the dean and chapter of Salisbury had agreed to compound at the rate of 1,021l. 7s. 11d. a year (Fœdera, xii. 735). Thither Deane was translated by papal bull early in 1500, the restitution of the temporalities taking place on 22 March (ib. xii. 748). On 13 Oct. he was also appointed, in succession to Archbishop Morton, keeper of the great seal (Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, Chronica Series, p. 76), and as that office was now commonly combined with the highest dignity in the church, he was made archbishop of Canterbury, after Bishop Langton of Winchester, originally selected as Morton's successor, had died suddenly of the plague. He was elected on 26 April 1501, confirmed by papal bull on 26 May, and on 2 Aug. his temporalities were restored, with the accrued profits since Morton's death, as a sign of the ‘special favour and sincere love’ of the king for the new archbishop (Fœdera, xii. 772–4; Le Neve, Fasti Eccles. Angl. i. 24, whose date, 7 Aug., for restitution of temporalities is wrong). It is worth noting that the patent of restitution is dated Llanthony, whither the king had probably gone on a visit to Deane, who still apparently held the priory in commendam. Deane was never installed at Canterbury, probably on the ground of expense.

On 28 Nov. Deane was appointed chief of the English commissioners deputed to negotiate the marriage of Margaret, King Henry's daughter, with James IV of Scotland (Fœdera, xii. 791), his colleagues being the Bishop of Winchester and the Earl of Surrey. On 24 Jan. 1502 the treaty of marriage was signed at Henry's favourite palace, Richmond, whither the Scottish commissioners, headed by the Archbishop of Glasgow, had proceeded (Fœdera, xii. 787–92). On the same day and at the same place the same negotiators signed a second long and important treaty of perpetual peace between England and Scotland (ib. xii. 793–800); and a third treaty which provided for the maintenance of order on the borders (ib. 800–3). To have got through so much business in so short a time speaks well for Deane's powers as a diplomatist. On 27 July 1502 he resigned the custody of the great seal. On 14 Nov. of the same year he officiated, ‘with nineteen bishops mitred,’ at the magnificent marriage of Arthur, prince of Wales, with the Infanta Catherine of Aragon (Hall, p. 493, ed. 1809). Other acts of his archbishopric are his rebuilding of the manor house at Otford, the repairing of the great bridge at Rochester, and the strengthening of its coping with ironwork, and some dealings with the university of Oxford, in which he was thought by the scholars to be attacking their privileges, a construction of his proceedings he himself denies (see his letter of 11 Oct. 1502 in Archæological Journal, xviii. 267). He was assisted in the government both of the archbishopric and previously of Salisbury by John Bell, bishop of Mayo, who acted as his suffragan (Wharton in Bibl. Top. Brit. pp. 40, 42, 43; Archæological