servant of the king (Eyton, Itinerary of Henry II, pp. 253, 277, 284, 285 n., 288 n., 293, 295 n., 296). In February 1187 Henry went abroad. William, with St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, followed, with the king's harness and horses, sailing from Southampton (ib. p. 277). Save for his return to England in the spring of 1188, when he visited Clarendon (ib. pp. 285, 288), he, like Hugh, probably remained abroad till Henry's death, as in 1188 he witnessed a charter at Alençon (ib. p. 284), and in July 1189 he witnessed a royal letter at Azai (ib. p. 296; Gerv. Cant. i. 450).
William rose into prominence in Richard I's reign. On 16 Sept. 1189 Richard, at the council of Pipewell, gave him the prebend of Hubert Walter in the church of York, and made him dean of St. Martin's, London (Rog. Hov. Chronica, iii. 16; Benedict of Peterborough, ii. 86). Geoffrey, elect of York, objected to the former promotion (Rog. Hov. iii. 17), but to no purpose (Walter of Coventry, i. 378). Before 1193 William also received a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral. He gave great offence to Giraldus Cambrensis [q. v.], who wrote a long letter to St. Hugh of Lincoln, denouncing William for wronging him in the matter of his church of Chesterton, Oxfordshire (Gir. Cambr. Opera, i. 259, 268). Giraldus speaks of him as ‘curiæ sequela et familiaris regis’ (Opera, i. 261). He is also described by Richard himself as ‘protonotarius noster’ (Rog. Hov. iii. 209). Under Richard I he was employed both as justiciar and as a member of the exchequer. In 1194 he had a clerk for the business of the Jews (Rog. Hov. iii. 264, 266). He was closely attached to Walter [see Hubert], who himself had formerly been protonotarius. He reconciled Giraldus Cambrensis with Hubert (Opera, iii. 323). William accompanied Hubert on his visit to Richard during his captivity in Germany in 1193 (Rog. Hov. iii. 209). Preferment was heaped upon him. He was appointed keeper of the forfeited lands of Geoffrey, the king's brother, until 3 Nov. 1194, when Geoffrey's lands were restored (ib. p. 274). He also had charge of the abbey of Glastonbury, the honour of Wallingford, and other lands in the king's hands. He was made guardian, in return for five hundred marks, of Robert, son of Robert FitzHarding, and had license to marry him to one of his kinswomen. He is said by Foss to have been sheriff of Surrey from 5 to 7 Richard I (1193–1196), though his name does not appear in official lists (List of Sheriffs, P.R.O. p. 135). He was made rector of Harewood, Yorkshire (Rotuli Curiæ Regis, ii. 222), and canon of St. Paul's. On 16 Sept. 1198 ‘ex largitione regis Ricardi’ he was elected bishop of London. According to the account given by Ralph Diceto, dean of St. Paul's, he was, at Diceto's own request (Diceto, ii. 166), on 23 May 1199 consecrated bishop at Westminster in the chapel of St. Catharine by Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, thirteen bishops being present (ib.; Coggeshall, p. 89). William was present on the 27th at the coronation of John (Rog. Hov. iv. 89, 90). During this and the next few years various concessions were granted by John to William (Rotuli Cartarum, pp. 17, 51, 64, 91, 124, 136, 140). William was present on 19 Sept. 1200 at the council at Westminster (Diceto, ii. 169), and witnessed the homage done by William, king of Scots, to John, outside Lincoln, on 22 Nov. 1200 (Rog. Hov. iv. 141). In December 1201 William, with Hubert Walter, crossed to Normandy (Diceto, ii. 173), at the king's request, and on 25 March 1201 was present at John's third coronation with Isabella at Canterbury (Rog. Hov. iv. 160). On 24 Aug. 1203, Hubert Walter being ill, William consecrated at Westminster William of Blois, elect of Lincoln, despite the protest of Gilbert, bishop of Rochester, who disputed his right to consecrate (Rog. Wend. iii. 139; Gir. Cambr. iii. 304). However, in 1206 he also consecrated Jocelyn bishop of Bath at Reading (Rog. Wend. iii. 188). In December 1204 William received formal confirmation of his position as first in dignity among the bishops of the province (Cal. of Papal Registers, Papal Letters, i. 19). A diplomatic mission to King Otto, John's nephew, was entrusted to William in 1204 (Coggeshall, p. 147), but seems to have had little result. On the outbreak of the quarrel between John and Innocent III, after the death of Hubert Walter on 12 July 1205, and upon John's refusal to accept Stephen Langton as archbishop, the pope issued a mandate on 27 Aug. 1207 to the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to exhort the king to receive the archbishop, and, should he refuse, to place the kingdom under an interdict (Cal. of Papal Registers, i. 29). The three bishops formally pronounced the interdict on 23 March 1208. The king at once confiscated all church property, and banished them for five years. They left the country secretly for France (Rog. Wend.. iii. 222). The chronicler complains that while all the evils of the interdict fell on England, the archbishop and the three bishops sojourned abroad, ‘omnimodis viventes in deliciis: cum lupum viderunt venientem, dimiserunt oves et fugerunt’ (ib.)
