Battle Abbey. Somewhere about 1158 he appears acting a very prominent part in the famous Scarbrough case of clerical extortion, that seems to have determined Henry II to make his attack an the ecclesiastical privileges. On this occasion Belmeis, the treasurer of York, appears as the chief maintainer of the rights of his order, and advised that the money should be restored and the offender left to the mercy of his bishop. The king, he urged, had no claim in the matter. At the outbreak of the Becket controversy, Belmeis was, according to Becket's biographer, FitzStephen, a close friend and protégé of the archbishop, and to prevent Becket profiting by his counsel, Henry II removed him in 1162 to the see of Poitiers, but the ceremony of consecration does not seem to have taken place till next year, when it was performed by the pope himself at the council of Tours (cf. Robert de Monte, sub. 1162, and Ralph de Diceto, i. 311, and ii. I20). But though abroad the new bishop seems to have been a staunch supporter of his order. An extant letter written some few months after this date is full of the kindliest feeling for his old friend. Next year we find that the bishop of Poitiers had been maintaining Becket's nephew, Geoffrey, and even giving him money. Towards the middle of 1164 we have another affectionate letter from John of Poitiers to Becket. Here the bishop speaks out his mind boldly, and declares that though, owing to the schism in the church and the necessities of the times, they had not resisted unto blood and had even stooped to dissimulation, yet no one could say that they had yielded to threats or acquiesced in impious plans. The letter indirectly explains that Belmeis did not go more frequently to plead Becket'a cause with the pope, because the people of his diocese, with whom there are other indications to show that he was little in sympathy, were only too ready to carry news of these visits to the king in the hope of doing the bishop harm, Belmeis had, however, taken care to engage the interests of the abbot of Pontigny, in whose abbey Becket, a few months later, took refuge. Neit year (1165), in another letter, Belmeis advises Becket to receive thankfully whatever the French king offers, and hints at the same time that the archbishop would do well to be content with a moderate retinue. The same year he recommended Becket to attend a conference with the empress and the archbishop of Rouen, having only one or two monks in his train, so that by contrast with his former state an chancellor he might move men's hearts to pity. But above all things be advises Becket to have all questions as to the way and form of his return settled before he reached England; for abroad he has the Count of Flanders and the empress at his back, whereas in England men speak only what the king wills. Next year (1166) a determined attempt was made to take away the bishop's life by means of a poisoned draught. Early in 1167, as Henry's envoys were returning from Rome by way of France, Becket asked Belmeis to ascertain all he could as to the success of their mission; but, as they were bound not to make any confession to the bishop, Belmeis had to trust to such scraps of information as he could pick up from the dean at whose house they lodged. Two years later, when it was hoped that Becket would make some concession at the meeting of Montmirail, but would only substitute 'salvo honore Dei' for 'salvo ordine nostro,' and the conference was broken off in anger, the bishop of Poitiers appears in the part, of a reconciliator. He was sent after Becket to Etampes, begging him to leave all things to the king's will; Becket had often openly longed for peace, let him now show that his wish was sincere. But he could only get for answer that the archbishop would promise nothing to the prejudice of the divine law. It was on this occasion that Becket reproached his old friend with the words; 'Brother, beware lest God's church be destroyed by you; by me, with God's favour, it shall not be destroyed,' John, being loth to carry back the archbishop's true message, translated it into a desire on Becket's part to commit his cause to Henry before all other mortals, adding a prayer that the king would provide (as a christian prince should) for the honour of the church and the archbishop's person. This design, however kindly meant, broke down. In the next few years we find the name of John, bishop of Poitiers, mentioned in Sainte-Marthe's 'Gallia Christiana' as occurring in several documents of the time. He was present at the council of Albi in 1176 (Sainte-Marthe, ii. 1180), and in the same year he appears beating back an incursion of plundering Brabantines from his province (Ralphe de Diceto, i. 407). Next year he was one of the witnesses when Henry II bought La Marche from its count for 15,000l. (December 1177), and, if we may trust Stephen of Tournay, was legate of the holy see both before and after this year. In 1178, when the king of France and England determined on taking measures for the suppression of the growing heresy in Toulouse, John of Poitiers was one of the five chief ecclesiastics sent to convert that region, and
