Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/66

 or Niel, whom they call king of Northumbria, is a confused reference to Niall Glundubh, king of Ireland. The latter, of course, was neither a Dane nor a brother of Sitric, but an Irishman of the race of the northern Hy Neill.

[Authorities cited in the text.]  NIGEL (d. 1169), bishop of Ely, statesman, was a nephew of Roger, bishop of Salisbury [q. v.], by whom he was committed for education to Anselm, abbot of Laon (, p. 539), and there trained for official work ( ii. 558). Although born, it would seem, scarcely later than 1100, he is not mentioned in England till nearly 1130. His earliest attestation is to an Abingdon charter (Chron. Abb. ii. 164), which is assigned to 1124, but which belongs to 1126–1130 (Add. MS. 31943, fol. 60). He also attests an Abingdon charter of 1130 (Chron. Abb. ii. 173), one granted at Rouen in May 1131, two granted at the council of Northampton in September 1131 (Sarum Documents; Mon. Angl. iv. 538), one of 1132 (ib. vi. 1271), and one of 1133 (Cart. Riev. p. 141), always as ‘nepos episcopi.’ He is also so styled in the Pipe Roll of 1130, where he occurs as connected with the Norman treasury, and as owning over fifty hides of land in various counties, besides property at Winchester, where doubtless he had official work. He was already a prebendary of St. Paul's (, ii. 377), when in 1133 he was promoted to the wealthy see of Ely, as Henry I was leaving England for the last time, and consecrated on 1 Oct. He was present, as bishop, at the king's departure (, i. 56). Resenting as a court job the selection of ‘the king's treasurer,’ the monks of Ely have left us, through their spokesman Richard, no favourable picture of his rule.

Residing at London, as treasurer and administrator, he left the charge of his see to a certain Ranulf, who soon quarrelled with the monks. Nigel, however, from his official position, was able to recover, at the end of Henry's and the beginning of Stephen's reign, several estates which his see had lost, and which he enumerated in his charter (Cotton MS. Tib. A. vi. fol. 111), but when he turned his attention to the treasures of his cathedral church the strife between Ranulf and the monks became acute. For two years they were oppressed by his exactions till, about the beginning of 1137, a mysterious conspiracy in which he was involved, and which, says Orderic, was revealed through Bishop Nigel himself, caused Ranulf's sudden flight with some of his ill-gotten wealth, whereupon Nigel and his monks became reconciled. His hands were strengthened by Pope Innocent, who in successive bulls and letters (1139) insisted on the complete restoration to his see of all her possessions, however long they had been lost (ib. 110 b–14).

Meanwhile the bishop, with his uncle and brother, had accepted Stephen's succession, and were all three present at his Easter court in 1136, and witnessed shortly afterwards his charter of liberties at Oxford (Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 262). His uncle is said to have bought for him the office of treasurer at the beginning of the reign ( p. 559). The wealth and power of the three prelates, however, exposed them to the jealousy of the king, and it was feared by Stephen that they were intriguing for the support of the pope. Dr. Liebermann holds that they actually attended the Lateran council of April 1139, but this is improbable. On their sudden arrest at the council of Oxford on 24 June 1139 Nigel alone escaped (Ann. Mon. iv. 23), and fled to his uncle's stronghold of Devizes, which, however, he was forced to surrender ( p. 549). The breach between the king and the prelates was now virtually irreparable, and Nigel was tempted by the strong position of Ely to embrace the cause of the empress on her arrival in England. He began to fortify the isle, and secured local allies (Historia Eliensis, p. 620). The king hearing of this sent forces against him, but they besieged the isle in vain till Stephen himself, after Christmas 1139, came to their assistance ( p. 267), and with the help of boats and a floating bridge crossed the water. At the onset of his troops Nigel's followers gave way at once, and he himself, with three companions, fled to the empress at Gloucester (Historia Eliensis, p. 620). Forfeited by the king, he found himself in poverty, and appealed to the pope for assistance. Innocent thereupon wrote on 5 Oct. 1140 to Theobald, the primate, complaining that Nigel was ‘absque justitia et ratione a sede sua expulsum et rebus propriis spoliatum,’ and insisting on his reinstatement and the submission of all his foes clerical and lay (Cotton MS. Tib. A. vi. ut supra).

But his fortune was now suddenly changed by the king's capture at Lincoln on 2 Feb. 1141. Accompanying the empress in her advance from Gloucester, he entered Winchester with her on 3 March, was with her at Reading in May, and at Westminster during her short visit in June. When her scattered followers reassembled at Oxford in July he was still with her, but after the release of the king he realised the hopelessness of her cause. Early in 1142, his knights having reassem-