of his time was more subtle whilst he was in power, now being reduced to a private person by his prince, was so stupified through grief, that his son-in-law, Ralph de Ardenne, utterly lost, by reason of his careless talk, whatever he had previously acquired by the judgment of his mouth. He too, himself, because he was an old man, and not able to bear fatigue, if he had been willing to give the king that little which remained after the payment of the fine, as a gratuity, would easily have obtained a remission of the peril of the journey. The king received security from the tributary kings of the Welsh and of the Scots, that they would not pass their borders for the annoyance of England during his absence.
Sect. 10. Godfrey, son of that renowned Richard de Luci, Richard (Fitz Neale) the treasurer, Hubert Walter, and William de Longchamp, four men of no small virtue, and of no mean praise, were elected at Pippewelle to the four vacant sees, viz. Winchester, London, Salisbury, and Ely. They all obtained sufficient canonical nomination, and especially the elect of Winchester, who obtained his nomination to the dignity on the seventeenth of the kalends of October (Sept. 15), while the election of the other three was delayed till the morrow, the king consenting and the archbishop confirming what was done, although at the first he would rather have had it somewhat otherwise: concerning which it wonderfully happened that he, who had been nominated to one of the sees by the archbishop's means, died that very day. William, bishop elect of Ely, retained the king's seal on the payment of three thousand pounds of silver, although Reginald the Italian had bid one thousand more. The bishops elect of Winchester and Salisbury were consecrated at Westminster, by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, on the eleventh of the kalends of November (Oct. 22). On that day, Hugh de Nonante, bishop of Coventry, laid his complaint before the archbishop and bishops assembled at the consecration of the bishops elect, against his monks of Coventry, for having laid violent hands on him and drawn his blood before the altar. He had also expelled the greater part of the congregation before his complaint, nor did he cease from his importunity until he had obtained the sanction of all the bishops in attestation to the pope against the monks.
