Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/204

 Corbeil the dedication of the magnificent new cathedral at Canterbury which Lanfranc had begun, Anselm continued, and to which William himself had contributed largely (4 May 1130). The kings of England and Scotland and a whole crowd of bishops, earls, and barons were present. Henry signalised the event by giving the collegiate church of St. Martin's, Dover, to the church of Canterbury. He resolved to refound St. Martin's, to turn out the secular canons, whose corrupt life was, according to the monks, but typical of their class, and put in their place Augustinian canons from Merton, for whose greater protection from the distractions of town life he transferred the college from the old church within Dover town to a new and sumptuous structure in the neighbouring country, built with Caen stone. But the monks of Christchurch at once claimed that the church was theirs and not the archbishop's. Though the prior supported the archbishop, a bolder champion of their rights was found in a monk named Jeremias, who prevented the bishops of St. David's and Rochester from introducing the Merton canons, and appealed to Rome on behalf of the rights of Christchurch. The archbishop's death was accelerated by his hurrying from his sick bed at his manor house of Mortlake to support by his presence the unlucky canons. Advantage was taken of his death to secure St. Martin's for Benedictine monks as a cell of Christchurch (, i. 96, ii. 383;, Monasticon, iv. 528, 544).

Another quarrel broke out between William and Hugh, abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury (, in, Scriptores Decem, p. 1798). His restoration of the abandoned nunnery at Minster in Sheppey proved more fortunate than his attempt at Dover (, Monasticon, ii. 50, from charter of Henry IV to Minster; cf., Collectanea, i. 89).

In 1134 William became involved in a quarrel with Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, which drove both prelates to Normandy to lay their grievances before King Henry. Next year, when Henry died, William, after some hesitation, consented to the election of Stephen. His weak plea for delay and circumspection and his insistence on the oaths he had sworn to maintain the succession of Matilda were overborne by the improbable assertion of one of Stephen's partisans that Henry on his deathbed had released them from their oaths. On 22 Dec. 1135 he crowned Stephen at Westminster, doubtless consoling himself for his perjury by the full promises of increased liberties for the church which Stephen had offered in his charters ( Hist. Novella, lib. i. cap. 11). But lovers of portents noticed that in his flurry the archbishop forgot the kiss of peace, and that the consecrated host slipped from his trembling hands (, ii. 383). He officiated at the burial of Henry I at Reading. But before long he removed from court disgusted, because at the Easter feast of 1136 Henry, earl of Huntingdon, the son of David, king of Scots, was placed by the new king in the most honourable position on his right hand. William's health, however, was now breaking up. His journey from Mortlake hastened his end. He died at Canterbury on 21 Nov. 1136, and was buried in his cathedral. The partisans of the Angevins rejoiced that within a year of his perjury he had lost his life ( p. 256).

William of Corbeil seems to have been a weak man, easily moulded by his surroundings, and without very decided character. Good luck rather than wit won him his exalted station. His panegyrists can only say that he was a man of modest life and of good education (, ii. 269), and that he was very religious, rather affable, and neither inert nor imprudent ( Gesta Pontif. p. 146). Henry of Huntingdon, however, roundly declares that his glories could not be celebrated, for they did not exist (De Contemptu Mundi, in Rolls edition, p. 314). The author of the ‘Gesta Stephani’ (p. 6) goes still further in denouncing him as a hypocrite, whose meekness and piety were but cloaks to an avarice which massed up treasures that it would have been better to distribute in alms.

 CORBET, CLEMENT (d. 1652), civilian, was the sixth son of Sir Miles Corbet of Sprowston, Norfolk, who was high sheriff of that county in 1591, by Katherine, daughter of Sir Christopher Heydon (Visitation of Norfolk in 1563, ed. Dashwood, i. 35). He was admitted a scholar of Trinitv Hall, Cambridge, on 7 Dec. 1592, took the degree of 