[A.D. 1214, translated to York 1215.] WALTER DE GRAY, was appointed to the see of Worcester after the removal of the Interdict. He had been King John’s Chancellor.
[A.D. 1216-1218.] SILVESTER OF EVESHAM, Prior of Worcester. He interred King John; and shortly before his death he dedicated the Norman church, which had been restored, and translated the relics of St. Wulfstan. (Pt. I. § I.; and _ante_, WULFSTAN.)
[A.D. 1218-1236.] WILLIAM DE BLOIS, Archdeacon of Buckingham, was intruded by the Legate Guala, in spite of the protests of the monks, who afterwards consented to receive him. The eastern portion of the existing Cathedral was built during his episcopate. (Pt. I. § XIV.)
[A.D. 1237-1266.] WALTER CANTILUPE, son of William, Lord Cantilupe; uncle of the sainted Bishop of Hereford. He was ordained deacon by the Pope at Viterbo, April 4; priest, April 18; and consecrated bishop, May 3,--in the same year, 1237. Bishop Walter was one of the most vigorous defenders of English liberty during great part of the reign of Henry III., when “England was held by successive Popes as a province of the Papal territory[116].” In 1237, the year of his consecration, he opposed the Cardinal Legate, Otho, at a council in St. Paul’s; and nearly twenty years afterwards, in 1255, made an equally firm stand against another Legate, Rustand, who had demanded an enormous subsidy from the clergy--nominally for the Holy Land, but really for the Pope and the King. Bishop Cantilupe declared he would rather be hanged on a gibbet than consent to such an extortion. He was one of the firmest adherents to the party of Simon de Montfort; and it was this Bishop who absolved the whole army of the Barons as it lay at Fletching, on the morning of the battle of Lewes;--bidding them fight boldly, and with as much certainty of salvation as if they were fighting in a crusade. With the other bishops who had espoused this cause, Cantilupe was excommunicated by the Pope; and was only reconciled and absolved on his deathbed. He died at his manor of Blocklewe, Feb. 12, 1265, and was interred before the high altar of his cathedral. His coffin-lid, with effigy, is now in the retro-choir, (Pt. I. § XVI.); and the coffin containing, in all probability, his remains was discovered during the late restoration. (Pt. I. § XVI.)