A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



superintended his education. The lad made the most of his opportunities, 

 and earned a certain reputation for learning and eloquence, while his 

 moral character was above reproach.^ The new bishop was before all things 

 a monk, was deeply influenced by the spirit of monasticism, and in his 

 infatuate zeal for the honour and glory of his own house, was quite likely 

 even to subordinate the interests of the diocese to those of the monastery. 

 Of his activity as diocesan indeed we hear almost nothing. He had a long 

 and bitter quarrel with Walkelin, one of his predecessor's archdeacons, and 

 in another quarrel with Hugh Bigot in 1166 he actually excommunicated 

 the powerful earl for attempting to defraud the Augustinian canons of 

 Pentney of some of their estates.^ It was an audacious act, but it did not 

 stand alone. The very next year (1167) when Becket excommunicated his 

 able and determined opponent Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, Bishop 

 William openly published that excommunication at a synod in Norwich 

 Cathedral, and then, retiring from the episcopal residence, lived and resumed 

 the monastic life in the priory. Three years later (i December, 1170) 

 Becket returned to England and entered Canterbury in state next day. From 

 this time during the following three weeks the primate kept up an animated 

 correspondence with Bishop William and in a letter of 9 December he signified 

 his intention of paying a visit to the bishop of Norwich. The intention was 

 never carried out. On Tuesday, 29 December, the great archbishop was 

 murdered in Canterbury Cathedral to the horror and consternation of the 

 Christian world. 



During all the long conflict between Becket and Henry II no bishop in 

 England showed himself a more stubborn and consistent supporter of the 

 martyred primate than Bishop William. His obstinacy had something heroic 

 in it and stood in the place of what in a nobler nature would have been called 

 enthusiasm.* 



On 10 June, 1172, a disastrous fire broke out in the cathedral, which 

 appears to have done great damage to the interior of the building.* Tradi- 

 tion tells how the saddened bishop did his best to restore the injury, but it 

 was left to his successor in the see to complete the restoration which Bishop 

 William can only have begun when he died in January, 1 174.° 



From his first promotion to the bishopric in 1145, the great object 

 which Bishop William had at heart seems to have been to make the 

 ' martyred ' boy William a patron saint in the cathedral of Norwich. Between 

 1 142 and 1 172 the body was translated four times, and not content with this 

 the bishop built and dedicated a chapel to his memory on Mousehold Heath, 

 fragments of which might have been seen in the middle of the last century. 

 Possibly Bishop William hoped to make the shrine a place of resort and 



' This is abundantly clear from Robertson's Materials for the Life of Becket (Rolls Ser.), vi, 292, and from 

 the letters of John of Salisbury during the papacy of Adrian IV (1154-9). The epistle numbered xxxiii is 

 certainly wrongly addressed to Bishop Turbe. 



' Jessopp, Hist, of the Diocese of tsonvtch, 71 ; Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 232. 



' His memorial verses on Becket are to be found in Gervase of Cant. Op. (Rolls Ser.), i, 232. 



* This is the date given in the Chronicon Breve in Trin. Coll. Camb. This chronicle would seem to 

 have belonged at one time to the priory and was in great part the compilation of a Norwich monk. Hardy, 

 Catalogue (Rolls Ser.) iii, 25. 



' It is curious that the same uncertainty which exists as to the date of Bishop William T\irht's consecraticn 

 is observable also in the discrepancies of the various dates given for his death. Gervase of Canterbury seems 

 most to be lelied on, who gives the date as on the feast of SS. Fabian and Sebastian — i.e. 20 January. 



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