ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



liberties and privileges which had been previously granted to them 

 jointly by Henry III. From the same king he obtained the manor of 

 Dalston 1 in 1230, which has afforded the principal residence of the 

 bishops of Carlisle almost from that date. The grant was afterwards 

 extended by the addition of ample privileges in the neighbouring forest. 

 As patron and benefactor of the Friars from their first coming to Eng- 

 land, he was instrumental in importing colonies of the Dominicans and 

 Franciscans into his cathedral city. 2 



As a courtier and diplomatist the fortunes of Bishop Walter shared 

 in the vicissitudes of success and defeat according as he pleased or dis- 

 pleased his royal master. At one time he held the highest offices in the 

 state, and at another he was under arrest or in flight. In 1233 he went 

 into exile beyond the sea for no other reason, in the opinion of the 

 chronicler of Lanercost, 3 than for the wrong done by the King to him 

 and his church of Carlisle. The quarrel must have been acute, for on 

 his flight the diocese was put under an interdict on the first Sunday in 

 Advent, and the regular and secular clergy were obliged to say the 

 divine offices in a low voice with closed doors. The estrangement, 

 however, did not last long, for in 1234 the same authority reported that 

 the bishop had become reconciled to the King. There can be little 

 doubt that Bishop Walter had been harshly treated. The King gave 

 him the treasurership of the Exchequer in 1232 to hold during life, but 

 by the influence of Peter de Roches, bishop of Winchester, he was 

 dismissed in a summary manner. 4 Intending to cross the channel from 

 Dover, with the view perhaps of laying his grievances before the pope, 

 he was seized by the King's messengers. The bishop of London, being 

 an eye-witness of the indignities inflicted on the distressed bishop, 

 threatened to excommunicate all who had laid violent hands on him, 

 and repaired immediately to the court to submit the matter to the King. 5 

 The bishop again visited the court and took part in the baptism of 

 Prince Edward in 1239." Though he was joined with some of the 

 other bishops in a commission to discuss the affairs of the church in 

 1 24 1, 7 his relations with the King were not as cordial as they were 

 before the rupture. King Henry sent him a reprimand in 1243 com - 

 manding him not to intermeddle in affairs of state, as it was high time 

 that he attended to the health of his soul. 8 Galling as the rebuke must 

 have been to the old favourite, it was not till three years afterwards 



1 Chart. R. 14 Hen. III. pt. ii. m. 10. 



Chron. de Lanercost, p. 42. We are told in the Annals of Bermondsey that in 1206 St. Francis 

 instituted the rule of the Friars Minors, and in that year was made the translation of the first prior, 

 Petreius, by the lord Bernard, formerly archbishop of Ragusa, who had come to England with King 

 Richard, from whom he had received custody of the bishopric of Carlisle (Annales Monastici [Rolls Series], 

 iii. 450). 



3 Chron. de Lanercost, pp. 42-3. 



4 Charter 16 Hen. III. m. 4 ; Madox, History of the Exchequer, 1711 edition, pp. 568-9 ; M. Paris, 

 Chronica Majora (Rolls Series), iii. 240. 



6 M. Paris, Chronica Majora, iii. 248 ; Historia Anglorum, ii. 358. 



6 Ibid. iii. 539-40 ; Historia Anglorum, ii. 422. 



7 Chronica Majora, iv. 173. 



8 Close 27 Hen. III. pt. i. (Vase.) m. I3d. 



n 25 4 



