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BI SHOP S IN T HE P O LITI CAL C OMMUNI TY
OF ENGLAND , 1213 – 1272
Bishops in the Political
Community of England,
1213–1272
S. T. AMBLER

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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© S. T. Ambler 2017
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2017
Impression: 1
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 In memory of Michael J. Ambler
‘Just look at this exemplar here,
ours as well as yours.
Let each man say the Lord’s prayer,
entreating God to receive this Christian soul
into his realm in heaven,
to sit in his glory alongside his own,
for we believe this man to have been a good man.’
History of William Marshal
 Acknowledgements

This book began life as a PhD thesis, though since the completion of its first version
it has seen four years of development. There are many people whose debt I have
incurred throughout this time. First and foremost, I am profoundly grateful to
David Carpenter and David d’Avray, who supervised my doctoral thesis and whose
knowledge and wisdom—as well as support—were and continue to be invaluable
to me. My doctoral research was undertaken at King’s College London, whose staff
and fellow students made the Department of History there a most stimulating and
encouraging environment in which to pursue doctoral research. I was given the
opportunity to undertake a PhD by funding provided by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council, and allowed a fourth year to complete it by the award of the
Thornley Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research—and to Miles Taylor
(the then director of the IHR) and his colleagues, and the fellows of the IHR, I am
very thankful. To Nicholas Vincent and Michael Clanchy, who examined the thesis,
I am indebted for much thoughtful advice and guidance at an important stage. After
completing my PhD, I was lucky to work on the AHRC-funded Breaking of Britain
project under the leadership of Dauvit Broun, who encouraged me to pursue the
possibility of the influence of Montfortian ideas on Scottish politics—a topic that was
to find a place in this book. I then had the fortune to join the University of East
Anglia as part of the AHRC-funded Magna Carta Project. Finishing this book whilst
being a part of the Magna Carta Project has allowed my work to benefit from the
discoveries made by other members of the Project, as well as from the opportunities
I have been afforded to undertake research on Magna Carta in the thirteenth century,
which in some cases converged with the themes of this book. I am indebted to all my
colleagues on the Magna Carta Project, and most especially to our Principal Inves-
tigator, Nicholas Vincent, who has been unfailingly generous in his support, counsel,
and expertise throughout my time on the Project and subsequently. I am also grateful
to Cathie Carmichael, Head of the School of History at UEA, for her support
throughout, and to other colleagues at UEA who have shared their knowledge and
counsel, especially Stephen Church and Carole Rawcliffe. To Felicity Hill, who has
provided much stimulating conversation, I owe much.
Others have provided advice and resources that have been a great help, including
Richard Cassidy, Katherine Harvey, Marc Morris, Ian Stone, and Benjamin Wild.
To Peter Linehan, John Maddicott, and Björn Weiler, who read sections of this
research at early stages of development, I am very grateful, as to OUP’s anonymous
reader, who provided thoughtful feedback on the whole.
Finally, I owe deep thanks to the friends and family who have supported me
during the past few years, through times that have sometimes been challenging:
Philippa Bowring, Catherine Burrard-Lucas, Helen Farley, Molly Phillpotts, and
Emma Stevens; as well as my sister, Katherine Ambler, and my mother, Mary
Ambler. My father, Michael Ambler, proudly saw this work begun but did not live
to see it finished: it is to him that this book is dedicated.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/12/2016, SPi

Contents
Introduction 1
1. Bishops and the Political Community 12
2. Kingship and Royal Power in Political Thought 32
3. Bishops as Peacemakers 61
4. Episcopal Unity and Royal Power 82
5. The English Bishops and the Revolution of 1258 105
6. Montfortians and Royalists 125
7. Justifying the Montfortian Regime 147
The Mise of Amiens and Negotiations with the Papal Legate 147
The Song of Lewes and the Parliament of January 1265 169
8. The Aftermath of the Battle of Evesham 184
Epilogue 196

Bibliography 207
Index 223
‘He hath set water and fire before thee: stretch forth thy hand to which
thou wilt.’
Ecclesiasticus 15: 17–18, quoted by Eudes de
Châteauroux in his memorial sermon for
John Gervase, bishop of Winchester.
 Introduction

From the latter years of King John’s reign to the end of Henry III’s, England’s
bishops were at the heart of political events. These events included the making of
Magna Carta in 1215 and, perhaps more importantly, its rebirth in the reign of
Henry III and subsequent entrenchment in political society, as well as the revolu-
tionary period 1258–65, when a group of subjects seized power from the king and
established a council to govern in his name. That bishops were protagonists in the
dramatic story of thirteenth-century English politics has, generally, gone unrecog-
nized, perhaps for two reasons. Firstly, academic research has for the most part
focused on the role of laymen—whether barons, knights, or even peasants—in the
politics of this era. Secondly, the public perception of these episodes—from the
meadow of Runnymede in 1215 to Westminster Hall in 1265, where the revolu-
tionary regime led by Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, held what is often called
the first House of Commons—renders them foundational moments in the con-
struction of an enlightened, Western democracy: a political order in which, even in
its earliest stages, religious leaders could expect only a walk-on part. It is the purpose
of this book to turn the spotlight on the bishops as they move, in leading roles,
across the stage and, in so doing, to recast the world of thirteenth-century English
politics. This was a world in which politicians wielded spiritual as well as temporal
power, where their actions were shaped by scriptural example, where spiritual
punishments were brought to bear for crimes against the state and secular punish-
ments meted out for moral transgressions. Here, to break Magna Carta was not just
a crime but a sin, a sin that placed your soul in jeopardy. The parliament of 1265
might be celebrated today as the first House of Commons but its centrepiece was
not a vote—it was a sentence of excommunication, the Church’s equivalent of
outlawry, proclaimed by bishops in a vivid religious ritual. This world was not
democratic, but theocratic.
The peculiar circumstances of this period provided a setting in which the bishops
could assume a central place in the political community. With King John’s loss of
Normandy in 1204 and the subsequent defeat of his forces by the Capetian king,
Philip Augustus, at Bouvines in 1214, the Plantagenet house had lost the majority
of its continental lands. Henceforth, the king was to spend almost all of his time in
England. In Henry III’s case, much of this time was spent at Westminster, where
the court and the machinery of government were now finding a permanent home.
This meant—as is often said of John—that subjects were exposed to their king in a
way that their parents and grandparents had not been. Henry and his manner of
ruling were thus under scrutiny in an entirely new way. The manner in which
2 Bishops in the Political Community

Henry was obliged to operate was also new, for he was the first king to rule under
Magna Carta. The first issue of the Charter had lasted no more than a few weeks
but, following John’s death, new versions were issued in 1216 and again in 1217
(the latter with its new partner, the Charter of the Forest) on behalf of Henry, who
was only a child when he took the throne. The definitive version of Magna Carta
was issued by the king in 1225 and confirmed by him in 1237, 1253, and (when he
was under the power of the revolutionary council) 1265. The terms of the Charter
laid formidable restrictions on English kingship. As well as binding the king to act
within the law, the Charter also forbade many of the traditional money-making
activities of the Angevin monarchs, such as the charging of exorbitant sums from
barons in the form of feudal dues (the customary payments due to the king, as
feudal overlord, from his tenants-in-chief ) and proffers to have the king provide
justice in legal disputes (in both instances the amount charged had been set
arbitrarily by the king).
Yet this was also a time when significant financial pressures, as well as Henry’s
ambitions, drove the king to search for cash. He was thus forced to look for ways to
raise money that were not forbidden by the Charter. In so doing, he set the
machinery of his government to bear down heavily upon lesser subjects in the
localities in various ways, in part through local officers who were often brutal and
corrupt.1 The king was also forced to go cap in hand to his greater subjects,
requesting taxation in regnal assemblies (and, as they came to be known in the
1230s, parliaments).2 This provided Henry’s greater subjects with increased bar-
gaining power, and did so at the very time when they were most encouraged to use
it. These earls, bishops, barons, and, increasingly, knights had been accustomed
by the circumstances of Henry’s minority (1216–27, when the kingdom had
been ruled by a council) to steering policy and appointing ministers through
conciliar discussion.3 Now, dismayed by the king’s regular demands for money,
and indignant at the corruption of his officers, they sought again a greater voice in
the government of the kingdom. They ensured that grants of taxation were
conditional—conditional upon the king’s granting of concessions, principally his
promise to keep Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. Gone were the days
when the king could operate with the full and terrible might of Angevin kingship,
coercing his magnates and prelates and destroying his opponents through large-
scale disseisins and financial penalties, imprisonment, and even murder.4 This was a

1 For Henry’s burdensome government, see J. R. Maddicott, ‘Magna Carta and the Local

Community 1215–1259’, Past and Present, 102 (1984), 25–65, at 36–48, R. Cassidy, ‘Bad Sheriffs,
Custodial Sheriffs and Control of the Counties’, in J. Burton, P. Schofield, and B. K. Weiler (eds.),
Thirteenth Century England XV (Woodbridge, 2015), 35–49, at 37–40, and R. Cassidy, ‘William
Heron, “Hammer of the Poor, Persecutor of the Religious”, Sheriff of Northumberland, 1246–58’,
Northern History, 50 (2013), 9–19.
2 D. A. Carpenter, ‘The Beginnings of Parliament’, in D. A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III

(London, 1996), 381–408, at 382.

3 D. A. Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (London, 1990), 402, 407–12; J. R. Maddicott, The

Origins of the English Parliament 924–1327 (Oxford, 2010), 147–53.

4 The extent to which the Angevin kings—particularly King John—employed arbitrary methods is

revealed in H. Summerson, ‘The 1215 Magna Carta: Clause 39, Academic commentary’, The Magna
 Introduction 3

new world, which required a new degree of cooperation between ruler and ruled: a
major shift in the balance of power towards the king’s greater subjects.
Contributing to this shift was another important factor: subjects had little fear of
their king. A medieval monarch was expected to carry himself with a certain
authority and to command his demeanour—to be intimidating, frightening, or
charming as he willed—so as to compel awe and respect. William Rufus, it was said,
‘would fix the man before him with a threatening gaze, and with assumed severity
and harsh voice overbear those with whom he spoke’, whilst amongst his friends, in
private, ‘he was all mildness and complaisance, and relied much on jest to carry a
point’.5 If a subject spoke out of turn to Henry II, the king would stare at them and
hold the room in silence, as they became increasingly uncomfortable and fearful of
a fit of royal anger.6 An angry Richard I was compared to a ‘fearful lion’ who ‘roared
horribly, burning with rage’, whose ‘raving fury terrified his dearest friends’.7
Henry III, in contrast, was not a man capable of claiming from his subjects a
great deal of respect, still less of instilling fear. If Henry had an epithet, it was
‘simplex’: a term that meant, at best, that he was straightforward but, at worst, just
simple-minded and easily led.8 Subjects referred openly to the king’s simplicity:
presiding over a humiliating military retreat in Gascony, Henry was told by one of
his own men that he ought to be taken and locked up like Charles the Simple,9
while the clergy complained in assemblies that the king’s simplicity had allowed
him to be duped into foolish policies.10 Under Henry’s predecessors, no subject
would have dared to speak in such a way. One only needs to imagine—if one can—
Henry II, Richard, or John in such a scene to recognize Henry III’s meagre stature.
At the very time, then, when subjects had new expectations about the limiting of
kingship, new complaints about the way the king managed his government, and
new ambitions to hold greater sway in the rule of the kingdom, they became
increasingly daring in their dealings with the king. These tensions were ignited in a

Carta Project (2014), http://magnacartaresearch.org/read/magna_carta_1215/Clause_39?com=aca, accessed

11 Jan. 2016; for King John’s ability and willingness to destroy those who stood in his way, see C. Veach,
‘King John and Royal Control in Ireland: Why William de Briouze had to be Destroyed’, EHR, 129
(2014), 1051–78; and for John’s execution of political prisoners, see M. Morris, King John: Treachery,
Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta (London, 2015), 153, 186, 273.
5 William of Malmesbury, The History of the English Kings (Gesta Regum Anglorum), ed. and trans.

R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, (Oxford, 1998), I, 554–7.

6 Adam of Eynsham, The Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, ed. and trans. D. L. Douie and H. Farmer

(2 vols., Oxford Medieval Texts, 1961–2), I, 66–8, 116–18, on both of which occasions Henry
eventually broke the tension, in the first case with an embrace and in the second by laughing raucously
at a joke made at his own expense.
7The Chronicle of Richard of Devizes of the Time of King Richard the First, ed. and trans.

J. T. Appleby (London, 1963), 19–20.

8 Carpenter, Minority of Henry III, 409–10; D. A. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, Britain

1066–1284 (London, 2003), 338–40.

9 J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994), 31–2.
10 See Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard (5 vols., Rolls Series, 1864–9), I (Annales Monasterii de

Burton, 1004–1263), 361, for the complaint put forward from the clergy of the archdeaconry of
Lincoln at a council of the English clergy in 1256 that ‘at the prompting of certain traitors the royal
simplicity has been ensnared’ concerning the Sicilian Business.
4 Bishops in the Political Community

parliament in the spring of 1258. Then, a group of barons marched on the king’s
hall at Westminster, demanding the establishment of a council.11 This council,
forced upon a cowering Henry, would control the machinery of the state—the
chancery and the exchequer—issuing orders for the government of the kingdom
and sending embassies to foreign courts in the king’s name; it would also manage
the kingdom’s revenues, appoint royal ministers and officers, and control royal
castles. This council went on, throughout 1258 and 1259, to draw up and
implement a programme of reform of central and local government. This pro-
gramme aimed to root out corruption from amongst royal officers, halt excessive
spending, and overhaul accounting procedures in order to restore the resources of
royal government; it also sought to improve the lot of lesser subjects by relieving
some of the financial burdens imposed upon them and by improving access to
justice, enabling them to seek redress not only from royal but also from baronial
officers who had done them wrong.12 This programme of reform came to be
known as the Provisions of Oxford, after the parliament of the summer of 1258
in which the measures were drafted. The Provisions—or at least their more
controversial features—did not last long, for between 1261 and 1262 Henry
managed to break his shackles and regain much of his power. In the summer of
1263, however, the reform movement re-emerged, transformed into a kingdom-
wide enterprise, as Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, stepped forward as leader.
In May 1264 the two sides met in battle at Lewes. Montfort was victorious and the
king was taken prisoner together with his heir, the lord Edward, and other members
of the royal family. A new council was established, in effect with the plan of
disinheriting Henry’s dynasty in favour of conciliar rule. It governed England
until August 1265, when the earl of Leicester and a host of his comrades were
cut down in battle at Evesham. This was England’s first revolution. The radical
turn of events between 1258 and 1265 was not inevitable, but it was a product of
the unique circumstances and personalities of its time.
This narrative is, in essence, a familiar one: a chapter in the story describing the
emergence of the parliamentary state. It is a narrative that has been shaped by
studies concerned primarily with the activities of secular elites.13 Yet, that bishops
deserve a prominent place in the telling has been suggested by several important
pieces of research over the past two or three decades. Björn Weiler, in an article of
2013, has drawn attention to the duty that was incumbent upon bishops to
reprimand the king for moral transgressions—a duty that can be traced through

11See p. 107. 12 See p. 121.

13The classic narratives of the making of Magna Carta are J. C. Holt, The Northerners: A Study in
the Reign of King John, (2nd edn, Oxford, 1992), which focuses on the baronial rebels, and J. C. Holt,
Magna Carta (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1992), in which Holt, in his chapter ‘The Quality of the Great
Charter’, argued strongly that Stephen Langton did not think it was the business of churchmen to
intervene in ‘secular’ affairs (281, 284–9)—an interpretation of Langton’s world view that has been
thoroughly disproved by John Baldwin and Philippe Buc (see p. 38). New research has shown, indeed,
that the bishops had an instrumental role in the making of Magna Carta, not only in negotiating
the settlement but in drawing up exemplars of the Charter, distributing them, and safeguarding them
(see p. 7).
 Introduction 5

the Anglo-Saxon period to the archiepiscopate of Stephen Langton (1207–26).14

John Maddicott dedicated a chapter in his magisterial biography of Simon
de Montfort, published in 1994, to the earl’s religious sensibilities, in which
he considered the earl’s friendship with prominent churchmen.15 Perhaps most
importantly for our purposes, David d’Avray, in an article of 1998, showed for the
first time the central place of the bishops in the enforcement of Magna Carta in
the thirteenth century. When a new version of the Charter was issued by Henry
III’s minority government in 1216, the controversial ‘security for peace’, which
empowered twenty-five barons to ‘distrain and afflict’ the king in order to compel
him to keep the Charter’s terms, was removed, leaving Magna Carta with no means
of enforcement.16 This changed in 1225 when Stephen Langton, archbishop of
Canterbury, and his suffragans stepped in to pronounce a general sentence
of excommunication against all who would violate Magna Carta or the Charter
of the Forest. The archbishop’s actions were informed by his own biblical scholar-
ship, which set out the need for kings to keep and abide by a written volume of the
law, and placed upon the shoulders of the clergy the responsibility for ensuring
that this condition was met (an important elaboration, we might suggest, of
the episcopal duty to reprimand the king that has been highlighted by Weiler).
In acting thus, Langton set a precedent for his successors, encouraging a culture in
which bishops were duty-bound to oversee royal government and to keep the king’s
rule within the law.17
If we pause for a moment to imagine how this sentence was proclaimed (using
the descriptions provided by the chronicler Matthew Paris), the importance of the
bishops’ place in the post-Magna Carta world is only heightened. In 1237, during a
great assembly, the king stood in St Katherine’s chapel of Westminster Abbey,
surrounded by his barons and bishops, with the bishops holding lighted candles.
The king placed his right hand on the Gospels and held a candle in his left, and
spoke his oath to the archbishop of Canterbury, binding himself to keep the
Charters. To consummate the sentence, all uttered ‘Let it be done’, and turned
over their candles onto the floor. This filled the room with smoke and the odour of
the smoking wicks, which got up people’s nostrils and irritated their eyes. At this
point the archbishop proclaimed: ‘Thus may the condemned souls of those who
violate the Charter be extinguished, and thus may they smoke and stink.’18 This

14 B. K. Weiler, ‘Bishops and Kings in England, c.1066–1215’, in L. Körntgen and D. Waßenhoven

(eds.), Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages: Germany and England by Comparison (Berlin, 2013),
157–203.
15 Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, 77–105.
16 For the ‘security of peace’, see H. Summerson et al. (trans.), ‘The 1215 Magna Carta: Suffix A’,

The Magna Carta Project (2013), http://magnacartaresearch.org/read/magna_carta_1215/Suffix_A,

accessed 11 Jan. 2016.
17 D. L. d’Avray, ‘«Magna Carta»: Its Background in Stephen Langton’s Academic Biblical Exegesis

and Its Episcopal Reception’, Studi Medievali ser.3, 38:1 (1998), 423–38.
18 According to Matthew Paris, Henry held a candle for the ceremony of 1237 but refused to do so

in 1253, on the grounds that he was not a priest: Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica
Majora, ed. H. R. Luard (7 vols., Rolls Series, 1872–83) [hereafter CM], III, 382, and V, 360–1 (for
events of 1237); V, 377 (for 1253).
6 Bishops in the Political Community

was a spectacular piece of theatre, designed to awaken the senses and impress itself
upon the memory, bringing home the spiritual burden placed on everyone to
uphold Magna Carta and the Forest Charter.
It is sometimes supposed that the turn of the thirteenth century marked a
profound shift in the western medieval world: with the rise of bureaucracy and
the parliamentary state came the end of charismatic kingship, and of charismatic
politics generally: a disenchantment.19 As several authorities have pointed out, the
picture was more complex than this. The change was more one of record than of
reality, and Henry III did much to promote the mystique of kingship.20 Moreover,
as the sentence of excommunication proclaimed in support of the Charters shows,
charismatic authority was central to the operation of thirteenth-century English
politics. It was not an authority wielded convincingly by the king but, instead, by
the bishops. There was indeed a profound change in the culture of politics in
thirteenth-century England: there was a new place for the bishops at the heart of the
political community.

Our period begins, then, in 1213, with the return from exile of Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury, and his suffragans. King John’s refusal in 1207 to accept
Langton’s candidacy for the archbishopric of Canterbury had forced Pope Innocent III
to take severe action. Between March 1208 and July 1214, England lay under a
sentence of interdict: a general strike of the Church that saw the cessation of most
Church services and almost all of England’s bishops depart the kingdom.21 It was

19 T. Reuter, ‘Assembly Politics in Western Europe from the Eighth Century to the Twelfth’, in

T. Reuter, Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities, ed. J. L. Nelson (Cambridge, 2006), 193–216, at
194–5, which change Reuter saw also in the role of bishops: ‘The period of charismatic bishops had
come to an end. Arguably, the post-Gregorian era saw no more than a “professionalization” of
episcopality: the patriarchal figures of the tenth and eleventh centuries were replaced by managers
with an MBA: progress, perhaps, but certainly loss as well.’ (T. Reuter, ‘A Europe of Bishops: The Age
of Wulfstan of York and Burchard of Worms’, in L. Körntgen and D. Waßenhoven (eds.), Patterns of
Episcopal Power: Bishops in 10th and 11th Century Western Europe (Berlin, 2011), 17–38, at 38).
20 D. A. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III and the Cosmati Work at Westminster Abbey’, in

D. A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London, 1996), 409–25; D. A. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III
and Saint Edward the Confessor: The Origins of the Cult’, EHR 122 (2007), 865–91; D. A. Carpenter,
‘King Henry III and the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey’, in R. Mortimer (ed.), Westminster Abbey
Chapter House: The History, Art and Architecture of ‘a Chapter House Beyond Compare’ (London, 2010),
32–9; E. H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1946), 171–9; N. Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the
Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge, 2001); N. Vincent, ‘The Pilgrimages of the Angevin Kings of
England 1154–1272’, in C. Morris and P. Roberts (eds.), Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket
to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 12–45; N. Vincent, ‘King Henry III and the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in
R. N. Swanson, Studies in Church History 39 (Woodbridge, 2004), 126–46; N. Vincent, ‘Twelfth and
Thirteenth-Century Kingship: An Essay in Anglo-French Misunderstanding’, in J.-P. Genet and
F.-J. Ruggiu (eds.), Les Idées passent-elles la Manche? Savoirs, représentations, pratiques (Paris, 2007),
21–36; and the work of Björn Weiler in extenso, e.g. B. K. Weiler, ‘Symbolism and Politics in the Reign
of Henry III’, in M. Prestwich, R. Britnell, and R. Frame (eds.), Thirteenth Century England IX (2003),
15–41, and B. K. Weiler, ‘Bishops and Kings in England, c.1066–1215’, in L. Körntgen and
D. Waßenhoven (eds.), Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages: Germany and England by Comparison
(Berlin, 2013), 157–203.
21 The classic account of the interdict is provided by C. R. Cheney, ‘King John and the Papal

Interdict’, Bulletin of John Rylands Library, xxxi (1945), 295–317.

 Introduction 7

only in the autumn of 1212, with the threat of rebellion at home and invasion from
France, that the king was forced to concede and accept Langton, in order to win
papal support. In May 1213, the king resigned his crown to the pope, becoming a
papal vassal and promising an annual tribute of 1,000 marks, thereby gaining the
pope’s protection and so scuppering the invasion plans of Philip Augustus, king of
France. There followed, in July 1213, a dramatic homecoming for Langton and his
colleagues: before Winchester Cathedral, John threw himself tearfully at the
bishops’ feet, begging their forgiveness. The bishops lifted him from the ground
and led him into the cathedral, where John swore to defend the Church and her
clergy, to maintain the good laws of his kingdom and to provide justice—effectively
a renewal of his coronation oath.22
This was an attempt by the bishops to reform an errant king, whose unjust and
burdensome rule had provoked widespread resentment, in an effort to avert civil
war. It ultimately failed but it was the bishops, led by Langton, who tried again in
1215 to broker peace, bringing king and barons together at Runnymede. Whilst
John and his men remained in their pavilions and the barons in their tents, the
archbishop and his colleagues shuttled back and forth between them to negotiate a
settlement.23 To describe their role here with such a meagre term as ‘go-between’
would be a failure to grasp its nature. Bringing together two sides so divided by
ideals and by enmity, and keeping them together long enough to hammer out a
peace treaty, required true grit. It also required a profound authority, drawn from
the charisma of the episcopal office and from the trust of both king and barons. The
bishops’ role, though, did not end here. As new research by David Carpenter,
Nicholas Vincent, and Teresa Webber has revealed, they provided their own scribes
to help draw up engrossments of the Charter, in order to ensure that the contents of
the document would be published above the wishes of a reluctant King John. The
bishops were also the principal guardians of Magna Carta 1215, taking exemplars
back to their cathedrals for safe-keeping, from where they could be read or
publicized.24 The bishops took on a further role in 1225, as we have seen, when
Langton and his suffragans assumed the task of enforcing Magna Carta, by means
of a general sentence of excommunication. This sentence was repeated when the
1225 Magna Carta was confirmed several times in the thirteenth century, strength-
ening a culture in which churchmen were the guardians of lawful government.
This was a duty that the bishops took seriously. In 1234, when Henry III had for
a time cast off the principles of Magna Carta, Stephen Langton’s pupil and
successor as primate, Edmund of Abingdon, and his suffragans confronted the
king in parliament with a catalogue of royal misdeeds and threatened to excom-
municate him unless he mended his ways. It was a threat that the king took
seriously, for he repented of his unjust actions and bent to Edmund’s counsel.25

22 See pp. 61–2.

23 Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson (Rolls Series, 1875), 172.
24 N. Vincent and D. A. Carpenter, ‘Feature of the Month: June 2015: Who Did (and Did Not) Write

Magna Carta’, The Magna Carta Project (2015), http://magnacartaresearch.org/read/feature_of_the_

month/Jun_2015_3, accessed 11 Jan. 2016; D. A. Carpenter, Magna Carta (London, 2015), 373–9.
25 See pp. 62–3.
8 Bishops in the Political Community

On another occasion, three years later, he and a number of his barons sought from
the archbishop absolution, in case they had fallen under the sentence.26
As the thirteenth century wore on, the bishops made increasing efforts to
publicize the sentence of excommunication to the wider kingdom.27 They were
driven by their responsibility to ensure good government but also by their pastoral
obligations: if anybody violated Magna Carta, their soul would be placed in
jeopardy, meaning that the bishops were duty-bound to warn their flocks of the
Charter’s terms, lest anybody fall under the sentence in ignorance.28 The conse-
quence was that Magna Carta was brought to a broad public, to parish churches as
well as shire courts, and thus to the unfree as to the free, to women as well as men.
The bishops, then, were not only at the heart of the political community but also
instrumental in its expansion.
Between 1258 and 1265, when the kingdom was overturned by revolution and
civil war, the bishops were once again at the centre of things, though this time their
involvement was of a different nature. Only two bishops joined the reform
movement in its earliest stages but by 1263–4, at the very time when Simon de
Montfort was re-establishing conciliar rule and doing so in more assertive fashion,
changes in personnel at the bench fortuitously brought forth bishops who would be
favourable to Montfort’s cause. A substantial cohort (eight bishops, around half
of the episcopate) worked with Montfort to seize the reins of government from
Henry III and impose a council that would rule in the king’s name. Drawn by
Montfort’s charisma—their belief that he was uncommonly virtuous and that his
leadership was divinely ordained—and by affection for the earl, they took their
place in the vanguard of the revolution. They supported Montfort’s imprisonment
of Henry III and the suppression of his power and were active members of the
council that governed the kingdom after the battle of Lewes. They also formed the
ideological arm of the movement, constructing arguments that sought to legitimize
the regime and using their powers of excommunication to enforce its decrees. Their
participation was central the overthrow of royal power: they were leading protag-
onists in England’s first revolution.
It is the story of this transformation—from peacemakers and overseers of royal
government to partisans and revolutionaries—that this book tells. Since before the
Norman Conquest, English bishops had been responsible for reprimanding the
king for moral transgressions but, in the early part of the thirteenth century, their
remit in the oversight of government was significantly extended.29 Crucial to this
development were Stephen Langton (archbishop of Canterbury 1207–26) and his
successor, Edmund of Abingdon (archbishop of Canterbury 1233–40). Between
them they built upon the example of their predecessors to create a new model for
episcopal involvement in the affairs of the kingdom, especially during times of

26 F. A. C. Mantello and J. Goering (eds.), The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln

(Toronto, 2010), 252–4.

27 See pp. 176–7.
28 F. Hill, ‘Magna Carta, Canon Law and Pastoral Care: Excommunication and the Church’s

Publication of the Charter’, Historical Research 89 (November 2016), 636–50.

29 Weiler, ‘Bishops and Kings in England’, 194.
 Introduction 9

discord between king and barons. Prioritizing the peace of the kingdom—even
when they felt sympathy for baronial grievances—they maintained their loyalty to
the king as well as his subjects, so that they were empowered and incentivized to act
as peacemakers.
Their intervention took a particular, peculiarly potent form. When illegal or
destructive royal policies caused baronial discontent that threatened civil peace, the
bishops could step in to reform the king’s behaviour, purging him of his self-serving
tendencies and recreating him symbolically as a newly worthy, pious king. Their
role was founded upon the example of the Old Testament prophets and that of
their predecessors, as well as their role as anointers of kings. They put their power to
use now not only (as their predecessors had done) in the defence of ecclesiastical
liberty but also in the interest of the broader kingdom. The strength of the
episcopate in acting thus was buttressed by a vigorous sense of corporate solidarity,
developed through the thirteenth century as prelates met frequently, not only in
synods but also in regnal assemblies, where the king’s regular demands for taxation
encouraged engagement with royal policy as well as collective action. The power of
the English bishops to reform royal rule was unusual, in comparison with their
colleagues in other European kingdoms, as was their motivation: the good of the
kingdom in general, rather than the preservation of ecclesiastical liberties alone.
Although they threatened erring kings with ecclesiastical censure, English
bishops in the first half of the thirteenth century, such as Langton and Edmund
of Abingdon, never attacked the foundations of royal power. Their policy was
continued by Robert Grosseteste (bishop of Lincoln, 1235–53). Grosseteste was an
energetic and committed pastor, a leading scholar, a vigorous personality, and a
friend to Simon de Montfort, as well as a colleague of several of the bishops who
would go on to support Montfort in the seizure of power. Historians of the period
have long sensed that Grosseteste might have planted the seeds of revolution.30 Yet,
when the bishop’s writing on kingship and government is reviewed, it becomes
clear that the picture is more complex. Grosseteste, like his predecessors and
colleagues, advocated the correction of errant superiors. Meanwhile, elements of
his scholarship on kingship (which, drawn from his work on Aristotle, insisted that
kings needed vast personal resources, managed well, in order to rule without
burdening their subjects financially) might have influenced the financial reforms
put in place in 1258.31 But Grosseteste’s world view precluded the usurpation of
royal power, a view in line with wider scholarly discussions, as well as contemporary
events in other kingdoms, on the matter of removing monarchs from the seat of
government.
The Montfortian bishops, between 1258 and 1265, breached the boundaries
laid out in the discourse of royal power. In contrast to the views and actions of their
predecessors, they renounced their loyalty to the king. As partisan Montfortians,

30 S. T. Ambler, ‘On Kingship and Tyranny: Grosseteste’s Memorandum and its Place in the

Baronial Reform Movement’, in J. Burton, P. Schofield, and B. K. Weiler (eds.), Thirteenth Century
England XIV (Woodbridge, 2013), 115–28, at 116.
31 See pp. 155–8.
10 Bishops in the Political Community

they were no longer qualified to act as peacemakers. Members of a regime that

seized royal power, they advocated measures that earlier bishops would have
considered, and their contemporaries certainly did consider, illicit and dangerous.
This rupture created an intellectual conflict, reflected in the actions and justifica-
tory arguments of the Montfortian bishops, who had to construct their case from
scratch in the crucible of political crisis. Their story provides an ideal type for the
study of political thought: spontaneous ideology. Not the cause but the conse-
quence of events on the ground, their arguments—at times obfuscating, often
strained, and ultimately unsatisfying to their audience—reveal the effect on the
production of ideas exerted by external pressures and the internal conflicts of those
who created them.

This book is an attempt to understand the bishops who operated on the political
stage during this particular period, to reconstruct something of their culture, way of
thinking, and way of operating, to discern the forces that moved them, and to
recognize their efforts to shape their world. This book does not seek to encompass
the entirety of episcopal culture. For instance, the bishops’ interest in pastoral care
is treated only where it interacts with political action and thought, and so readers
interested in diocesan provision and administration must look elsewhere. Nor does
it seek to follow the course of politics later, in the fourteenth century, and the
bishops’ part therein. This decision is deliberate. Some readers, familiar with the
perturbations of later years, which saw Edward II first confronted with demands for
conciliar oversight and then deposed, and then Richard II similarly brought low,
might seek to trace a line backwards from these events to those of the 1260s. That is
their prerogative. My aim has been to approach the actions of the thirteenth-
century bishops without the benefit—or indeed the blinkers—of hindsight. For the
fact that drastic action was taken against certain kings in the fourteenth century can
lead to the assumption that such action was somehow inevitable or, at least,
considered acceptable. Whatever the political climate in the fourteenth century,
in the thirteenth century such action certainly was neither inevitable nor considered
legitimate. Specifically, the notion that a council of subjects was entitled to operate
powers that hitherto had been considered royal prerogatives, and that such a
council would imprison the king and disinherit his dynasty in order to achieve its
goals, was utterly radical in 1258, and was so still in 1264, when the council’s
powers were defined more clearly and boosted.
This is why the justification of these actions was such a challenge for the
Montfortian bishops, not least because of the intellectual and moral discomfort
the bishops had to bear. My aim has been to view these events from their point of
view, to understand how they experienced things as they happened. Others may
wish to investigate what happened next, and how some of the ideas brought forth
in this period played upon the minds of those who confronted Edward II or
Richard II. They should, though, bear in mind how much had changed in the
intervening years. Politics had become violent in a way that it had not been,
generally, since the Norman Conquest. This process began with the cold-headed
decision of the lord Edward to unleash slaughter upon his noble opponents at
 Introduction 11

Evesham in 1265, and continued through Edward’s actions as king in Scotland,

from his execution of noble enemies and rough imprisonment of their womenfolk
to his concerted humiliation of the Scottish king.32 Partly as a result of this turn
towards a more aggressive, brutal type of politics, the nobility in the fourteenth
century was operating in a very different climate from that of its predecessor.
Something else had also changed: those members of the nobility who contended
with Edward II had grown up knowing that kings—in England and in Scotland—
could be brought low. Theirs was a different world. For the bishops and barons of
the 1250s and 1260s, the idea of displacing royal power in favour of conciliar rule,
and doing so by the threat and use of violence, was radical, and its implementa-
tion impulsive. Even (or especially) for those who supported the revolution, the
idea was profoundly disconcerting. It is only when we appreciate this—by seeking
to understand the choices of our protagonists, their values, their attachments,
and their fears, and the way in which they confronted the challenges placed
before them, all the while reminding ourselves of the sense of immediacy that
suffused their situation—that we can make sense of their politics and their
political arguments.

32 See M. Strickland, ‘Treason, Feud and the Growth of State Violence: Edward I and the “War of

the Earl of Carrick”, 1306–7’, in C. Given-Wilson, A. Kettle, and L. Scales (eds.), War, Government
and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150–1500: Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich (Woodbridge,
2008), 84–113.
 1
Bishops and the Political Community

The church of Salisbury was especially excited by his translation [to the see], as she
had, in him, had a strenuous dean for many years previously, whom she knew to be
learned in the highest degree . . . sufficiently adorned in all habits. And the whole
kingdom applauded his appointment, because he had gone against Louis, son of the
King of France, and his Frenchmen . . . a faithful and outstanding fighter.1

Thirteenth-century England was a special place, and time, to be a bishop. These

bishops were—as their predecessors had been—anointers of kings, tenants-in-chief,
pastors, counsellors, spiritual leaders, diplomats, the brothers and friends of kings
and barons, and the protectors of the weak, roles to which they brought a unique
spiritual authority. And now, at this time, circumstance and personality converged
to produce an episcopal community uncommonly dedicated not only to its pastoral
mission but also to the defence of the kingdom and the oversight of royal
government, bound as a cohort like never before, empowered to influence events
and compelled to act by duty and devotion. Who were the bishops of our period,
how was their community formed and their culture shared, and what was their
place in the wider political community?
The bishops of this period hailed from different backgrounds. Some came from
prestigious lines: Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester and Fulk Basset of London
were of great baronial families, while Boniface of Savoy of Canterbury was the uncle
of the queen. Others came from less illustrious stock: Edmund of Abingdon of
Canterbury from a middling urban family that might have made its living from
trade, Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln from people who were of the poorest.2 Almost
all, though, at this time, had been raised to high office in recognition of their
qualifications and commitment as leaders and pastors. For the thirteenth century,
as Katherine Harvey has recently argued, was a ‘golden age of electoral freedom’.3
Henry III, like his predecessors, expected chapters to choose bishops who would
provide good service for king and kingdom but, unlike earlier kings, he rarely
interfered in a serious way with the process of election. It is true that royal

1 The Register of Saint Osmund, ed. W. H. Rich Jones (2 vols., Rolls Series, 1883–4), II, 4–5.
2 For Edmund’s background, see The Life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris, ed. and trans.
C. H. Lawrence (Oxford, 1996), 3–5; for Grosseteste, see R. W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste: The
Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986), 75–8, J. McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste
(Oxford, 2000), 19–20.
3 K. Harvey, Episcopal Appointment in England, c.1214–1344: From Episcopal Election to Papal

Provision (Aldershot, 2014), 71–125 and (for quotation) the book’s abstract.
 Bishops and the Political Community 13

patronage could still provide powerful support in a clerk’s climb up the ecclesias-
tical career ladder. Several clerks who acted as keepers of the king’s seal during
Henry’s reign, for instance, later went on to obtain episcopal office.4 But this was
not the only route to advancement. John Gervase, for example, had served as a royal
clerk and enjoyed the support of both the king and his brother Richard, earl of
Cornwall, in procuring benefices, but Gervase had also served in the household of
the saintly Richard Wych of Chichester, and owed his appointment to the presti-
gious and powerful see of Winchester to papal provision.5 Robert Grosseteste had
no patron to support him, maintaining himself and his scholarship through
employment in diocesan administration until he was finally favoured with his
first benefice by the bishop of Lincoln (presumably in recognition of his talents,
scholarship, and commitment to the pastoral mission) in his mid-fifties.6 He was
lecturing to the Oxford Franciscans when the canons of Lincoln, having failed to
agree on a candidate, compromised and chose him as their bishop.7 Richard
Gravesend made his career in senior diocesan administration under Grosseteste’s
wing, becoming archdeacon of Oxford and then (after Grosseteste’s death) dean of
Lincoln; he was thus a relatively straightforward choice for the canons who elected
him bishop of Lincoln in 1258.8 In sum, royal service was no longer the primary
path to episcopal office. Soon scholars, pastors, and servants of the Church had a
critical mass. The effect was to imbue this cohort with a sense of freedom. Even
when men did rise to office with royal support (Boniface of Savoy, for instance, was
appointed by free capitular election, but by canons mindful of the king’s wishes),9
they did not feel beholden to the king. They felt free, which often meant that they
felt free to unite with their fellows to oppose royal policy.10
What many of these men had in common was their learning. The schools of
Paris had flourished from the later twelfth century and were still a desirable
destination for young scholars with the ambition and dedication to test themselves.
But the schools of Oxford were fast becoming an attractive alternative—many of
those who were to become bishops spent time here as well as, or instead of, the
French capital. The appointment of a university professor to an episcopal see had
been an unusual event when Stephen Langton was consecrated archbishop of
Canterbury in 1207, but soon it was to be common. Of the bishops who held
office between 1215 and 1272, forty-three received substantial university educa-
tions (all but one of these were known by the title of ‘master’), far outnumbering
those secular clerks who had not spent time at Oxford or Paris (twenty-seven)
and those from monastic backgrounds (eight).11 The masters were those who had

4 Silvester de Everdon, William of Kilkenny, Henry Wingham, Nicholas of Ely, Walter of Merton,

and John Chishull all held the seal between 1244 and 1263 and went on later to obtain bishoprics
(E. B. Pryde, D. E. Greenway, S. Porter, and I. Roy (eds.), Handbook of British Chronology (3rd edn,
Cambridge, 1996), 85).
5 See pp. 126. 6 McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 29.
7 McEvoy, Robert Grosseteste, 29–30.
8 See p. 138.
9 Harvey, Episcopal Appointments, 69, 92, 106. 10 See Chapter 4, pp. 82–104.
11 This count is based on the listing of bishops with short biographies given in M. Gibbs and

J. Lang, Bishops and Reform, 1215–1272: With Special Reference to the Lateran Council of 1215 (Oxford,
14 Bishops in the Political Community

incepted in the liberal arts, having studied logic, grammar, mathematics, and
astronomy for something like six years. Some went on to study canon law, others
to undertake the demanding course of theology, continuing for a further eight years
to attain the rank of doctor: Stephen of Bersted and Henry of Sandwich both
incepted as doctors of theology at Oxford in the 1250s, becoming bishop of
Chichester and London respectively in the early 1260s.12 This world of learning
built ties amongst the men who would go on to be leaders of the Church. Their
outlooks might be shaped by the influence of teacher upon pupil: while at Paris,
Stephen Langton had taught four or five future bishops,13 Edmund of Abingdon
taught at least two, perhaps three.14 Bonds must also have been formed between
students: Stephen of Bersted and Henry of Sandwich must have come to know each
other well, studying theology together at Oxford.15 This training produced the
characteristic feature of the thirteenth-century episcopate: so many of its members
were shaped outside the royal court, in a collegiate environment where they were
taught by their own. Like the modern British Army, the thirteenth-century Church
trained itself, producing the means by which a strong sense of identity, and
distinctive culture, could be formed and fostered among its leaders.
These men were not, though, ivory tower academics. Firstly, their education
served the pastoral mission of the Church, equipping shepherds of souls with the
learning necessary to understand and guide their flocks and instilling in them the
dedication necessary for the fulfilment of their duties. Secondly, this education
served to equip a student for the interpretation of and interaction with the world
around him. Theologians, in particular, investigated real-world problems of mor-
ality and political ethics.16 They also learned that it was the responsibility of
churchmen to involve themselves in the political world, for churchmen were the
purveyors of wisdom (and were thus qualified to instruct kings), as well as the

1934), appendix C, though to the list of masters has been added Jocelin of Wells and Richard Marsh;
Walter Gray, while not referred to as ‘master’, was at Oxford, where he was taught by Edmund of
Abingdon (see note 14).
12 Bersted is first noted as a doctor of theology (regent) in March 1254; Sandwich incepted in 1256

(A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols. (Oxford,
1957–9), I, 170, III, 1638).
13 Alexander of Stainsby (bishop of Coventry and Lichfield 1224–38), Richard Poore (bishop of

Chichester 1215–17, Salisbury 1217–28, and then Durham 1228–37), Benedict of Sawston (bishop
of Rochester 1215–26), Edmund of Abingdon, and conjecturally Jocelin of Wells (bishop of Bath/
Bath and Wells 1206–42): N. Vincent, ‘Master Alexander of Stainsby, Bishop of Coventry and
Lichfield, 1224–1238’, JEH 46 (1995), 615–40, at 619–20; N. Vincent, ‘ “Let Us Go down from
this Joyful Commencement to the Plain”: Richard Poer and the Refoundation of Salisbury Cathedral’,
in P. Binski and E. A. New (eds.), Patrons and Professionals in the Middle Ages, Harlaxton Medieval
Studies xxii (Donnington, 2012), 5–40, at 11; Lawrence, Life of St Edmund, 23–4; J. Sayers, ‘Jocelin of
Wells and the Role of a Bishop in the Thirteenth Century’, Jocelin of Wells: Bishop, Builder, Courtier
(Woodbridge, 2010), 34–52, at 36–7.
14 Richard (bishop of Bangor 1236–67) and Walter de Gray (bishop of Worcester 1214,

archbishop of York 1214–55), and conjecturally Walter Suffield (bishop of Norwich 1245–57):
C. H. Lawrence, St Edmund of Abingdon: A Study in Hagiography and History (Oxford, 1960), 115;
C. Rawcliffe, Medicine for the Soul. The Life, Death and Resurrection of an English Medieval Hospital: St
Giles’s, Norwich, c.1249–1550 (Thrupp, 1999), 22.
15 See n. 12. 16 See p. 47.
 Bishops and the Political Community 15

successors of the Old Testament prophets (and thus authorized to correct them).17
Many scholars, moreover—whether by learning or disposition—possessed the
qualities that made valuable servants of the kingdom: political acumen, an under-
standing of human nature, courage, energy, and resilience. Masters Stephen Langton,
Jocelin of Wells (bishop of Bath), and Richard Poore (bishop of Salisbury) were
to be key ministers in the minority government of Henry III, and master Walter
de Cantilupe was a member of Henry III’s council in the 1250s.18 They formed
relationships, and worked together, with those of their colleagues who had not
passed through the schools: Fulk Basset, for instance, who rose through the ranks
with the aid of his prestigious family connections, was a correspondent of the great
scholar and pastor Robert Grosseteste, and sat alongside Walter de Cantilupe in the
royal council; de Cantilupe and Basset acted in concert to lead the English
episcopate in opposition to royal demands for a tax on Church income in
1255.19 That such men worked closely together should not be surprising. Men
like Fulk Basset, who did not hail from the schools, and who had made their way
through the patronage of their prestigious family or through royal service, were
quite capable of being at once personally devout as well as conscientious diocesans
and able government servants—this is, by now, a truism.20
On becoming bishops, all of these men shared a special status, having undergone
the same transformative act at their consecration. Other status groups were bound
by rites of passage (most obviously the knight, drawn from a broad social stratum
ranging from the middling ranks of the gentry to the earl, was created by the act of
knighting). But the bishop’s rite of passage was distinguished in that its ceremony
was akin to a royal coronation, comprising a grand procession, oath-swearing,
anointing with holy oil, and enthronement.21 At that time the bishop took
possession of his see, for unlike kings or earls he was rooted in a profound way to
his seat (his cathedral city), an association founded on a Late Antique ideal.22 There
he might build, rebuild, or expand his cathedral: Richard Poore’s construction of
the magnificent church at Salisbury, Jocelin of Wells’s building of the west front at
Wells, and the rebuilding by the bishops of Lincoln of their cathedral after its
collapse in 1185 being just three distinguished examples (according to legend Hugh
of Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, even carried stones for the rebuilding of his cathedral

17 See pp. 33–4. 18 See pp. 25, 26, 27. 19 See p. 96.
20 C. R. Cheney, From Becket to Langton: English Church Government, 1170–1213 (Manchester,
1956), 35–41; C. R. Cheney, Hubert Walter (London, 1967), 177–86; N. Vincent, Peter des Roches:
An Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge, 1996), 4–6; N. Vincent, ‘Jocelin of Wells: The
Making of a Bishop in the Reign of King John’, in R. Dunning (ed.), Jocelin of Wells: Bishop, Builder,
Courtier (Woodbridge, 2010), 9–33, at 33; Vincent, ‘Richard Poer and the Refoundation of Salisbury
Cathedral’, 6–9.
21 Reuter, ‘A Europe of Bishops’, 21; M. Parisse, ‘The Bishop: Prince and Prelate’, in S. Gilsdorf

(ed.), The Bishop: Power and Piety at the First Millennium (Münster, 2004), 1–22, at 11; T. Reuter,
‘Bishops, Rites of Passage, and the Symbolism of State in Pre-Gregorian Europe’, in Gilsdorf (ed.),
Power and Piety, 23–36; K. Harvey, ‘The First Entry of the Bishop: Episcopal Adventus in Fourteenth-
Century England’, in J. S. Hamilton (ed.), Fourteenth Century England VIII (Woodbridge, 2014),
43–58.
22 S. Watson, ‘The Bishop and his Cathedral Cities’, in Dunning (ed.), Jocelin of Wells, 67–98, at

68–71.
16 Bishops in the Political Community

on his shoulders). The bishop might also build palaces, on a scale of artistry and size
that reflected an ability to command resources, patronize the best of artisans, and
transform the landscape comparable to that of kings.23
As bishops, these men began to tread together the political stage. England was a
small and closely governed kingdom, so that bishops met regularly at court or in
assembly, and in provincial or supra-provincial synods.24 Many, indeed, built
townhouses in London so as to be within easy reach of the royal court, clustering
around one stretch of road from the Strand to Westminster: at times of great
London assemblies, they would have counted themselves neighbours.25 Seeing each
other regularly helped to foster a sense of community (a theme explored in
Chapter 4). When they were not together, they wrote to one another: the letter
collection of Robert Grosseteste shows him in communication with Edmund of
Abingdon and Boniface of Savoy (both archbishops of Canterbury), Walter de
Gray, archbishop of York, Alexander of Stainsbury of Coventry and Lichfield,
Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester, Ralph de Neville of Chichester, Hugh of
Northwold of Ely, and William Raleigh of Winchester.26 This collection is a rare
survival and, comprising a carefully selected corpus, might reveal only a small
part of Grosseteste’s letter-writing circle.27 The (again, probably partial) letter collec-
tion of Grosseteste’s friend and collaborator, the Franciscan Adam Marsh, adds to
their circle the names of Richard Wych (like Grosseteste, a major supporter and
collaborator of the friars), Fulk Basset, and Richard Gravesend (one of Grosseteste’s
archdeacons and another trusted collaborator in scholarly and pastoral pursuits,
consecrated bishop of Lincoln in 1258).28 Through conversations and correspond-
ence, they shared ideas, worked out differences, and nourished friendships.
The bishops’ friendship and collaboration can be seen in perhaps their most
celebrated work: their diocesan legislation. The thirteenth century was, famously,
an ‘age of reform’, in which the bishops transfused into England the ideals of
clerical education and discipline, and pastoral care set out in the decrees of the
Fourth Lateran Council, celebrated by Innocent III in 1215. Only nine English

23 Vincent, ‘Richard Poer and the Refoundation of Salisbury Cathedral’; T. Tatton-Brown, ‘Jocelin

of Wells as a Palace Builder’, in Dunning (ed.), Jocelin of Wells, 101–9, at 108–9; J. Sampson, ‘Bishop
Jocelin and his Buildings in Wells’, in Dunning (ed.), Jocelin of Wells, 101–22; N. Temple, J. Shannon
Hendrix, and C. Frost (eds.), Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral: Tracing Relationships
between Medieval Concepts of Order and Built Form (Farnham, 2014), 7–8.
24 See Chapter 4.
25 Jocelin of Wells had a house opposite St Helen’s church in Bishopsgate and then a second in St

Clement Danes; Ralph de Neville of Chichester built a house near New Temple; the bishops of
Salisbury, Norwich, Carlisle, and Durham all built houses along the Strand in the 1220s; Hugh
of Lincoln was close to Holborn; and the palaces of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of
Winchester were sited on the south bank of the river, at Lambeth and Southwark (Sayers, ‘Jocelin of
Wells and the Role of a Bishop’, 40, Tatton-Brown, ‘Jocelin of Wells as a Palace Builder’, 101–3).
26 Mantello and Goering (eds.), Letters of Robert Grosseteste, nos. 12, 17, 23–4, 26–8, 34, 62, 72,

83, 86–9, 96, 98–9, 113, 116, 126.

27 Mantello and Goering (eds.), Letters of Robert Grosseteste, 16–18.
28 C. H. Lawrence, ed., The Letters of Adam Marsh, (2 vols., Oxford, 2006–10), nos. 72, 74, 75, 80,

81, 82, 83, 96. For Richard Wych’s relationship with the friars, see Saint Richard of Chichester: The
Sources for his Life, ed. D. Jones (Sussex Record Soc., 1993), 18, 67, 181; and for Grosseteste’s, see
Southern, Robert Grosseteste, 258–9.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The day's play
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Title: The day's play

Author: A. A. Milne

Release date: September 13, 2023 [eBook #71638]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1910

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAY'S

PLAY ***
THE DAY'S PLAY

BY

A. A. MILNE

THIRD EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published ... September 22nd 1910

Second Edition ... December 1910
Third Edition ... January 1921
 TO
R. C. LEHMANN
MY CHIEF CREDITOR
THIS
TRIFLE ON ACCOUNT

[Transcriber's note: The main headings below were in the

source book. The secondary ones were added for reader
convenience.]

CONTENTS

THE RABBITS
Part I
Part II

MARGERY
To Margery—from her Uncle
Margery's Sock
How to Play the Pianola
The Knight of the Chimney-piece
The Art of Conversation
Afternoon Sleep

JOCK

MORE CRICKET
To an Old Bat
A Scratch Lot
 Ex Nihilo fit Multum
An Average Man

SMALL GAMES
Physical Culture
Croquet
Gardening
Golf
Stump Cricket
Exploring
Shopping
Chess
Progressive Bridge
Dressing Up
After Dinner

BACHELOR DAYS
The Butter
The Washing
Taking Stock
Medes and Persians
The Cupboard
The Post Bag
Going Out
The Sidesman
An Awkward Case
Reverie
Retrospect

LETTERS TO CHARLES

NOTE.—All the Articles and Verses in this book have previously appeared
in Punch. To the Editor for printing them, and the Proprietors for permitting
me to reprint them, I shall always be grateful.
A. A. M.

THE RABBITS

PART I

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING THE LOP-EARED ONES AND

OTHERS

"By Hobbs," cried Archie, as he began to put away the porridge, "I feel
as fit as anything this morning. I'm absolutely safe for a century."

"You shouldn't boast with your mouth full," Myra told her brother.

"It wasn't quite full," pleaded Archie, "and I really am good for runs to-
day."

"You will make," I said, "exactly fourteen."

"Hallo, good-morning. Didn't see you were there."

"I have been here all the time. Fourteen."

"It seems a lot," said Myra doubtfully.

 Archie laughed in scorn.

"The incoming batsman," I began, "who seemed in no way daunted by

the position of affairs——"

"Five hundred for nine," put in Myra.

"—reached double figures for the fourth time this season, with a lofty
snick to the boundary. Then turning his attention to the slow bowler he
despatched him between his pads and the wicket for a couple. This,
however, was his last scoring stroke, as in the same over he played forward
to a long hop and fell a victim to the vigilance of the wicket-keeper."

"For nearly a quarter of an hour," continued Myra, "he had defied the
attack, and the character of his batting may be easily judged from the fact
that his score included one five——"

"Four from an overthrow," I added in parenthesis.

"And one four. Save for a chance to mid-on before he had scored, and
another in the slips when seven, his innings was almost entirely free from
blemish——"

"Although on one occasion he had the good fortune, when playing back
to a half-volley, to strike the wicket without dislodging the bails."

"See to-morrow's Sportsman," concluded Myra.

"Oh, you children," laughed Archie, as he walked over to inspect the

ham. "Bless you."

Miss Fortescue gave a little cough and began to speak. Miss Fortescue
is one of those thoroughly good girls who take an interest in everything. A
genuine trier. On this occasion she said: "I often wonder who it is who
writes those accounts in The Sportsman."

"It is believed to be Mr Simpson," said Archie.

 Simpson looked up with a start, and jerked his glasses into his tea. He
fished them out and wiped them thoughtfully.

"The credible," he began, "is rarely——"

"Gentlemen, I pray you silence for Mr Simpson's epigram," cried

Archie.

"Oh, I always thought Mr Simpson wrote verses in The Saturday

Review," said Miss Fortescue in the silence which followed.

"As a relaxation only," I explained. "The other is his life-work. We read

him with great interest; that bit about the heavy roller being requisitioned is
my favourite line."

"Mr Simpson and Killick and Crawford all play in glasses," put in Myra
eagerly, across the table.

"That is their only point in common," added Archie.

"Oh, isn't he a very good player?"

"Well, he's a thoroughly honest and punctual and sober player," I said,
"but—the fact is, he and I and the Major don't make many runs nowadays.
We generally give, as he has said in one of his less popular poems, a local
habitation to the—er—airy nothing."

"I thought it was Shakespeare said that."

"Shakespeare or Simpson. Hallo, there's Thomas at last."

Thomas is in the Admiralty, which is why he is always late. It is a great

pity that he was christened Thomas; he can never rise to the top of his
profession with a name like that. You couldn't imagine a Thomas McKenna
—or even a Thomas Nelson, but he doesn't seem to mind somehow.

"Morning, everybody," said Thomas. "Isn't it a beastly day?"

 "We'll hoist the south cone for you," said Archie, and he balanced a
mushroom upside down on the end of his fork.

"What's the matter with the day?" asked our host, the Major, still intent
on his paper.

"It's so early."

"When I was a boy——"

"My father, Major Mannering," said Archie, "will now relate an

anecdote of Waterloo."

But the Major was deep in his paper. Suddenly he—there is only one
word for it—snorted.

"The Budget," said Myra and Archie, exchanging anxious glances.

"Ha, that's good," he said, "that's very good! 'If the Chancellor of the
Exchequer imagines that he can make his iniquitous Budget more
acceptable to a disgusted public by treating it in a spirit of airy persiflage he
is at liberty to try. But airy persiflage, when brought into contact with the
determined temper of a nation——'"

"Who is the hairy Percy, anyhow?" said Thomas to himself.

The Major glared at the interrupter for a moment. Then—for he knows

his weakness, and is particularly fond of Thomas—he threw his paper down
and laughed. "Well," he said, "are we going to win to-day?" And while he
and Archie talked about the wicket his daughter removed The Times to a
safe distance.

"But there aren't eleven of you, here," said Miss Fortescue to me, "and if
you and Mr Simpson and Major Mannering aren't very good you'll be
beaten. It's against the village the first two days, isn't it?"

"When I said we weren't very good, I only meant we didn't make many
runs. Mr Simpson is a noted fast bowler, the Major has a M.C.C. scarf,
which can be seen quite easily at point, and I keep wicket. Between us we
dismiss many a professor. Just as they are shaping for a cut, you know, they
catch sight of the Major's scarf, lose their heads and give me an easy catch.
Then Archie and Thomas take centuries, one of the gardeners bends them
from the off and makes them swim a bit, the Vicar of his plenty is lending
us two sons, Tony and Dahlia Blair come down this morning, and there is a
chauffeur who plays for keeps. How many is that?"

"Eleven, isn't it?"

"It ought only to be ten," said Myra, who had overheard.

"Oh yes, I was counting Miss Blair," said Miss Fortescue.

"We never play more than ten a side," said Archie.

"Oh, why?"

"So as to give the scorer an extra line or two for the byes."

Myra laughed; then, catching my eye, looked preternaturally solemn.

"If you've quite finished breakfast, Mr Gaukrodger," she said, "there'll

be just time for me to beat you at croquet before the Rabbits take the field."

"Right O," I said.

Of course, you know, my name isn't really Gaukrodger.

CHAPTER II

ON THE RUN
 The Major has taken a great deal of trouble with his ground, and the
result pleases everybody. If you are a batsman you applaud the short
boundaries; if you are a wicket-keeper (as I am), and Thomas is bowling
what he is pleased to call googlies, you have leisure to study some
delightful scenery; and if you are a left-handed bowler, with a delivery
outside the screen, there is behind you a belt of trees which you cannot fail
to admire. When Archie was born, and they announced the fact to the
Major, his first question was (so I understand), "Right or left handed?" They
told him "Left" to quiet him, and he went out and planted a small forest, so
that it should be ready for Archibald's action when he grew up.
Unfortunately, Archie turned out to be no bowler at all (in my opinion)—
and right-handed at that. Nemesis, as the ha'penny papers say.

"Well?" we all asked, when Archie came back from tossing.

"They lost, and put us in."

"Good man."

"May I have my sixpence back?" I said. "You haven't bent it or

anything, have you? Thanks."

As the whole pavilion seemed to be full of people putting on their pads

in order to go in first, I wandered outside. There I met Myra.

"Hallo, we're in," I said. "Come and sit on the roller with me, and I'll tell
you all about Jayes."

"Can't for a moment. Do go and make yourself pleasant to Dahlia Blair.

She's just come."

"Do you think she'd be interested in Jayes? I mean the Leicestershire

cricketer, not the disinfectant. Oh, all right, then, I won't."

I wandered over to the deck-chairs, and exchanged greetings with Miss

Blair.
 "I have been asked to make myself pleasant," I said. "I suppose that
means telling you all about everybody, doesn't it?"

"Yes, please."

"Well, we're in, as you see. That's the Vicar leading his team out. He's
no player really—one of the 'among others we noticed.' But he's a good
father, and we've borrowed two offsprings from him. Here comes Archie
and Wilks. Wilks drove you from the station, I expect?"

"He did. And very furiously."

"Well, he hardly drives at all, when he's in. He's terribly slow—what
they call Nature's reaction. Archie, you will be sorry to hear, has just
distinguished himself by putting me in last. He called it ninth wicket down,
but I worked it out, and there doesn't seem to be anybody after me. It's
simply spite."

"I hope Mr Archie makes some runs," said Dahlia. "I don't mind so
much about Wilks, you know."

"I'm afraid he is only going to make fourteen to-day. That's the postman
going to bowl to him. He has two deliveries, one at eight A.M. and one at
twelve-thirty P.M.—the second one is rather doubtful. Archie always takes
guard with the bail, you observe, and then looks round to see if we're all
watching."

"Don't be so unkind."

"I'm annoyed," I said, "and I intensely dislike the name Archibald.

Ninth wicket down!"

The umpire having called "Play," Joe, the postman, bounded up to the
wicket and delivered the ball. Archie played forward with the easy
confidence of a school professional when nobody is bowling to him. And
then the leg-bail disappeared.

"Oh!" cried Dahlia. "He's out!"

 I looked at her, and I looked at Archie's disconsolate back as he made
for the pavilion; and I knew what he would want. I got up.

"I must go now," I said. "I've promised to sit on the heavy roller for a
bit. Archie will be here in a moment. Will you tell him from me that we
both thought he wasn't quite ready for that one, and that it never rose an
inch? Thank you very much."

I discovered Myra, and we sat on the roller together.

"Well, I've been making myself pleasant," I said. "And then when
Archie got out I knew he'd want to sit next to her, so I came away. That is
what they call tact in The Lady."

"Archie is rather fond of her," said Myra. "I don't know if——"

"Yes, yes, I understand. Years ago——"

"Let's see. Are you ninety or ninety-one? I always forget."

"Ninety-one next St Crispin's Day. I'm sorry Archie's out. 'The popular
cricketer was unfortunate enough to meet a trimmer first ball, and the silent
sympathy of the Bank Holiday crowd went out to him as he wended his
way to the Pavilion.' Extract from 'Pavilions I have wended to, by Percy
Benskin.' Help! There goes Blair!"

After this the situation became very serious. In an hour seven of us had
got what I might call the postman's knock. Wilks was still in, but he had
only made nine. The score was fifty-two, thanks entirely to Simpson, who
had got thirty-five between first and second slip in twenty minutes. This
stroke of his is known as the Simpson upper cut, and is delivered straight
from the shoulder and off the edge of the bat.

"This is awful," said Myra. "You'll simply have to make some now."

"I think it's time Wilks got on to his second speed. Why doesn't
somebody tell him? Hallo, there goes John. I knew there wasn't a run there.
Where are my gloves?"
 "You mustn't be nervous. Oh, do make some."

"The condemned man walked firmly to the wickets. 'What is that,

umpire?' he asked in his usual cool voice. 'Houtside the leg stump, sir,' said
the man in white. 'Good,' he replied.... What an ass your second gardener is.
Fancy being potted out like that, just as if he were a geranium. I ought to
wear a cap, oughtn't I, in case I want to bow when I come in. Good-bye; I
shall be back for lunch, I expect."

I passed Joe on my way to the wickets, and asked pleasantly after his
wife and family. He was rather brusque about it, and sent down a very fast
half-volley which kept low. Then Wilks and I returned to the pavilion
together amid cheers. On the whole, the Rabbits had lived up to their
reputation.

"Well, we are a lot of bunnies," said Archie at lunch. "Joe simply stands
there looking like a lettuce and out we all trot. We shall have to take to
halma or something. Simpson, you swim, don't you?"

"You don't have to swim at halma," said Simpson.

"Anyhow," said Blair, "we can't blame the Selection Committee."

"I blame Thomas," I said. "He would have eight, and he wouldn't wait. I
don't blame myself, because my average is now three spot five, and
yesterday it was only three spot one."

"That is impossible, if you made nought to-day," said Simpson eagerly.

"Not if I divided it wrong yesterday."

"Averages," said the Major to the Vicar, catching the last sentence but
two, "are the curse of modern cricket. When I was a boy——"

"This," Archie explained to us, "takes us back to the thirties, when Felix
Mynn bowled Ensign Mannering with a full pilch."

"Dear old Fuller Pilch. Ah! what do they know of England, who only
King and Jayes?" I declaimed. "Libretto by Simpson."
 "Who's finished?" said Archie, getting up. "Come out and smoke. Now,
we simply must buck up and out the opposition. Simpson ought to bump
them at Joe's end, and Thomas——"

"I always swerve after lunch," said Thomas.

"I don't wonder. What I was going to say was that you would box them
in the slips. You know, if we all buck up——"

We bucked up and outed them by the end of the day for two hundred
and fifty.

CHAPTER III

GOOD SHOOTING

"Will somebody give me a cigarette," said Myra, stretching out a hand.

"I fancy not," I said. "Thomas and I both feel that you are too young."

"I don't really want one, but when I'm locked up in the billiard-room
with two dumb men——"

"We were reflecting on our blessed victory."

"Were you thinking of Archie's century or John's bowling?"

"Neither, oddly enough. I was recalling my own catch which won the
match. Poetry; let's go and tell Simpson."

"It was a skier," said Myra. "I thought it was never coming down. What
did you think of all the time?"
 "Everything. All my past life flashed before my eyes. I saw again my
happy childhood's days, when I played innocently in the—er—pantry. I saw
myself at school, sl—working. I saw——"

"Did you happen," interrupted Thomas, when we both thought he was

fast asleep, "to see yourself being badly taken on by me at billiards?"

"Thomas, you're not properly awake, old friend. I know that feeling.
Turn over on the other side and take a deep breath."

Thomas rose and stretched himself, and went over to the cue rack. "You
should have heard him siding about his blessed billiards this morning," he
told Myra.

"I didn't side. I simply said that anybody could beat Thomas. Do they
play billiards much at the Admiralty? I should have thought the motion
——"

"Take a cue. Myra will mark."

"Rather; I can mark like anything."

"Once upon a time," I said, "there was a lad who wanted to get into the
Admiralty. But his mother said, 'Not until you have learnt to swim,
Thomas.' So he had a set of six private lessons for one guinea before he
went in for the examination. He came out thirty-eight, and was offered a
lucrative appointment in the post office.... Hence his enormous skill at
billiards. Thick or clear?"

"I will adventure half-a-crown upon the game," said Thomas, giving a
miss.

"Right O, Rothschild. Now, are you ready, marker? I'm spot. Hadn't you
better oil the board a bit? Well, as long as you can work it quickly enough."

I took careful aim, and my ball went up the table and back again, with
the idea, I imagine, of inspecting the wicket. It seemed quite fast.
 "One all," said Myra, and Thomas kindly brought his ball and mine to
the top of the table.

"I fancy I shall be able to swerve from this end," I said. I tried a delicate
cannon, and just missed the object ball. "I shall find a spot directly—there's
one under the red ball, I believe."

"Do try and hit something," said Myra.

"The marker is not allowed to give advice," I said sternly. "What's the
matter, Thomas?"

"I'm not quite sure what to do."

"I think you ought to chalk your cue here," I said, after examining the
position.

"I've done that."

"Then ram the red."

Thomas rammed and all but sank it in the left-hand pocket.

"I am now," I said, "going to do a cannon off the cushion. Marker, what
is my score?"

"One, sir."

"Then kindly get ready to put it up to three.... Rotten luck."

"Wrong side," said Myra judicially.

"No, I meant to hit it that side."

"I mean you wanted a little running side."

"This isn't Queen's Club. Go on, Thomas."

 Thomas, who had been chalking his cue, advanced to the table. "Hallo,"
he said, "where's the other ball?"

I looked at the table, and there were only two balls on it!

"That's an extraordinary thing," I said in amazement. "I'm almost certain

we started with three."

"Did you put me down?"

"Certainly not; I shouldn't dream of doing such a thing. I don't say I

mayn't have slipped down myself when nobody was looking. Myra, did you
notice which pocket I was trying for that time?"

We felt in all of them, and at last found my ball in one of the bottom
ones. It must have gone there very quietly.

"Score, marker?" I asked confidently, as I prepared to continue my

break.

"Oh, you're going over the crease," cried Myra.

I took my ball back an inch. "Will you tell me the score?" I said.

"Stevenson (in play) three; Inman, two. Inman's two were both wides."

Barely were the words out of her mouth when Inman's score was
increased by a no-ball. A miss-cue they call it technically.

"Three all," said Myra. "This is awfully exciting. First one is ahead, and
then the other."

"By the way, how many up are we playing?"

"Five, aren't you?" said Myra.

This roused Thomas. He had played himself in, and now proceeded to
make a pretty break of seventeen. I followed. There was a collision off the
middle pocket between spot and red, and both went down. Then plain was