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 head. Thinking that some one had usurped his right, he advanced to the king, robed and wearing his pall, and declared that a wrong had been done, and that he would not proceed with the ceremony so long as the king wore the crown. Henry, who seems himself to have put on his crown, replied that it was a mere matter of thoughtlessness, and that the archbishop might do whatever was right. Ralph began to take the crown off, and the king helped him to undo the clasp of the chain that held it. Fearing that he would refuse to replace it, the spectators called on him to do so. He replaced it on the king's head, and the service proceeded (ib. pp. 132–3 n.;, Historia Novella, vi. cols. 518–19). In March he accompanied the king to Abingdon, and while there, on the 13th, consecrated Robert Peche, one of the officers of the royal household, bishop of Lichfield. He did not give up his hope of victory over the see of York; he laid before the king the privileges that had lately been found at Canterbury, and worked on Henry's mind by urging that it was matter that concerned the unity of the kingdom, propounding the maxim ‘One primate, one king.’ Henry was convinced, and at a great council held at Michaelmas renewed his command that Thurstan should make the profession. Ralph was not present, for a day or two before he had been seized with illness, probably with another stroke of paralysis; his consecration of Gregory to the see of Dublin at Lambeth on 2 Oct. seems to have immediately preceded this attack. About a year later he was again struck with paralysis, died on 20 Oct. 1122, and was buried in his cathedral.

Ralph was pious, learned, and eloquent, of high moral character, affable in manners, liberal, and generally popular. Until sickness rendered him tetchy, he was cheerful and good-tempered; he was indeed so much given to laughter, joking, and trifling that some people considered his facetiousness unworthy of his dignity and age, and called him ‘a trifler’ (Gesta Pontificum, p. 133n.) But he certainly combined wisdom with his wit; he was a strenuous assertor of the rights of the national church and of what he conceived to be the rights of his see, was respected by the king, and played his part in the controversies in which he was engaged with dignity and judgment. A collection of his homilies is in the Bodleian Library (Laud MS. D. 49), and many letters of his are preserved by Eadmer and others.

[Eadmer's Hist. Nov. vols. v. vi. and Vita Gundulphi (ed. Migne); Gallia Christ. xi. 719 sq.; Orderic, pp. 678, 706, 776–7, 811, 846, ed. Duchesne; A.-S. Chron. ann. 1114, 1115, 1119, 1120, 1122, William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontiff. pp. 126–8, 131–3, 262–5, and Gesta Regg. lib. v. c. 396, Gervase of Cant. i. 10, 44, 72–3, ii. 377–80, Historians of York, ii. 131–98, 228–51, Hist. de Abingdon, ii. 147–9 (these six Rolls Ser.); Flor. Wig. ii. 59, 67, 70, 74, 77 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Anselm's Epp. iii. 23, ed. Migne; Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 175; Anglia Sacra, i. 7, 56; Hook's Archbishops of Cant. ii. 277–301; Freeman's William Rufus, i. 184, 242, ii. 430 n.; Bale's Scriptt. Brit. Cat. cent. xii. 82; Wright's Biogr. Lit. ii. 105.] 

RALPH, RADULF, RANULF, or RANDULF (d. 1123), chancellor, was a chaplain or clerk of Henry I, and became chancellor in 1107–8 (Monasticon, v. 192), from which date he appears frequently as holding that office until his death. For the last twenty years of his life he suffered much from bodily infirmity; but his mind was active, and he is described as crafty, prompt to work evil of every kind, oppressing the innocent, robbing men of their lands and possessions, and glorying in his wickedness and ill-gotten gains. In the first days of 1123 he rode with the king from Dunstable, where Henry had kept Christmas, escorting him to the castle of Berkhampstead, which belonged to the chancellor. As he came in sight of his castle his heart, it was believed, was puffed up with pride. At that moment be fell from his horse, and a monk of St. Albans, who had been despoiled of his possessions by him, rode over him. He died of his injuries a few days afterwards. He had a son, who joined him in some benefactions to Reading Abbey, and he also granted the manor of Tintinhull, Somerset, to Montacute Priory in that county (ib. p. 167).

[Henry of Huntingdon's Hist. Angl. and Ep. de Contemptu Mundi, pp. 244, 308; Rog. Hov. i. 180 (both Rolls Ser.); Rog. Wend. i. 202 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Leland's Collect. i. 69 (ed. 1770); Foss's Judges, i. 130.] 

RALPH, called (d. 1123), bishop of Chichester, was consecrated to that see in 1091 by Archbishop Thomas (d. 1100) [q. v.] of York (‘Actus Pont. Ebor.’ in Historians of the Church of York, ii. 359, Rolls Ser.). He may be said to have founded the cathedral of Chichester, so fundamentally did he alter the original structure, and his work, characterised by massive simplicity, can still be traced in the more modern building (, Memorials of the See of Chichester, pp. 48–9). The church, which was consecrated in 1108 (Ann. Monast. ii. 43, Rolls Ser.), was injured by a fire which did great damage to the city in 1114 ( i. 169, Rolls Ser.), but Ralph successfully peti-