Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/146

 former's residence in England, that a quarrel took place which provoked John for a moment to deprive Hubert of the seals, ‘but the archbishop by his admirable prudence soon regained the king's favour’ ( ii. 410). His last political appearance was at Whitsuntide 1205, when he is said to have joined with William Marshal in dissuading the king from an expedition against France. On 10 July, on his way from Canterbury to Boxley to compose a quarrel between the Rochester monks and their bishop, he was attacked by a fever and a carbuncle; he turned aside to Tenham, and there, three days later, he died. In March 1890 a tomb attached to the south wall of Canterbury cathedral, close to its eastern end, was opened and found to contain remains which have since been identified as those of Hubert Walter (Antiquary, June 1890, 126-150).

‘Now, for the first time,’ said John, when he heard the tidings, ‘am I truly king of England’ (, Hist. Angl. ii. 104). Coming from John, the words form the highest possible tribute to Hubert's character as a statesman. To his character as statesman, indeed, Hubert in his own day was accused of sacrificing his character as archbishop. But the charge is not altogether just. During the first five years of his pontificate he was hampered by a quarrel with his own chapter about a college for secular priests which his friend [q.v.] had founded at Lambeth out of the superfluous wealth of the metropolitan see, and which Hubert was most anxious to maintain, but which the monks strongly opposed; they carried the day, and in 1198 a papal brief forced Hubert to pull down the college. Appointed legate in March 1195, he had in that year made a visitation of the northern province, and held a church council at York; in September 1200 he held another council in London, in the teeth of a prohibition from the justiciar; at both councils some useful canons were passed. He was careful of the temporal interests of his see; he recovered for it the manors of Hythe and Saltwood, and the castles of Rochester and Tunbridge, which it had lost under Henry II; he kept the buildings at Christ Church and on the archiepiscopal manors in good repair; he obtained from Richard a renewal, afterwards confirmed by John, of the long-lost privilege of the archbishops to coin money at Canterbury (, Ann. of Coinage, 1840, ii. 181); he exercised a splendid hospitality during his life, and he bequeathed a mass of treasures to his cathedral church at his death, as well as the benefice of Halstow, whose revenues he directed to be appropriated to the precentor 'for the repair of the books,' i.e. the service-books used in the choir. When dean of York he had founded a Premonstratensian priory at West Dereham (, Not. Monast., Norfolk, xxi.;, Mon. Angl. vi. 899); as chaplain-general of the Crusade, he seems to have originated or organised the house of canons regular attached to the chapel and cemetery for pilgrims at Acre, founded by a clerk named William in 1190 (, ii. 81; Ann. Dunst. a. 1231); and about 1204 he began transforming into a Cistercian monastery a secular college at Wolverhampton which had been surrendered to him for that purpose; this project, however, expired with him (, Not. Monast., Staffordshire, xxxi.; Mon. Angl. vi. 1443; 'Pipe Roll' Staffordshire, 6 Joh., in Salt Archæol. Coll. i. 119, 125).

Gerald of Wales mocks at Hubert's imperfect scholarship ( Opera, ii. 344-345); that he had, however, some scholarly sympathies is shown by his zeal for the Lambeth college, planned avowedly for the encouragement of learning. When once their great quarrel was ended, he and his monks were the best of friends; a week before his death he was at Canterbury, expressing the warmest interest in their welfare, and promising soon to return and ‘stay with them longer than usual,’ a promise fulfilled by his burial in their midst. One of them describes him as ‘tall of stature, wary of counsel, subtle of wit, though not eloquent of speech,’ and says that he chiefly erred in lending too ready an ear to detractors. It may have been this failing which led him to use his ecclesiastical influence and strain his temporal authority to the uttermost in order to drive out and keep out of the realm a man of whom he was somewhat unreasonably jealous, his fellow-primate of York [see, archbishop of York]. This, however, is the only instance in which his political action appears to have been influenced by personal motives. In his struggle with Gerald [see ] he was unquestionably fighting Canterbury's and England's battles, rather than his own. Gerald was the only person who ever brought any serious charge against the archbishop's honour, and those charges he afterwards retracted (Opera, i. 426).

