Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/153

 at Sudbury in Suffolk in the parish of St. Gregory. He studied at the university of Paris, received the degree of doctor of laws, and practised canon law. Entering the service of the pope, he became chaplain to Innocent VI, and auditor of the papal palace, and was sent by Innocent as nuncio to Edward III in 1356 (Fœdera, iii. 328, 402). Having been appointed chancellor of the church of Salisbury, he was sent by the king, who then speaks of him as his clerk, to make a representation on his behalf to the pope in May 1357 (ib. p. 356). In the following October he was appointed one of the proctors of David Bruce (1324–1371) [q. v.] at the papal court. The pope rewarded his services by providing him to the see of London in October 1361 (ib. p. 628). He was consecrated on 20 March 1362, and received the temporalities on 15 May. He was appointed joint ambassador to treat with the Count of Flanders in 1364 about the proposed marriage between his daughter and Edmund de Langley, first duke of York [see ]. He appears to have held advanced religious opinions, for it is said that being on his way to Canterbury in 1370, at the time of a jubilee of St. Thomas the Martyr, he addressed a party of the pilgrims that thronged the road, telling them that the plenary indulgence that they sought would be of no avail. His words were received with anger, and an old knight, Sir Thomas of Aldon in Kent, is said to have answered him, ‘My lord bishop, why do you seek to stir up the people against St. Thomas? By my soul, your life will be ended by a foul death’ (Anglia Sacra, i. 49). Nevertheless in that year he had a heretic named Nicholas Drayton in his prison (Fœdera, iii. 889). Many abuses prevailed in his cathedral church, and on 26 Jan. 1371 the king wrote to him, bidding him reform them, and blaming him for not having done so before (ib. p. 908). Both in 1372 and 1373 he was employed with others in negotiations with France. Having, in conjunction with his brother John of Chertsey, bought the church of St. Gregory in his native parish, he rebuilt the west end, caused it to be made collegiate, and joined his brother in building a college for a warden and five priests where their father's house had stood.

In February of that year Sudbury was appointed with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster [q. v.], and others to treat with France. William Wittlesey [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, having died on 6 June, and the election of Cardinal Simon Langham [q. v.] having been quashed, Sudbury was translated by papal bull to Canterbury in 1375, and received the temporalities on 5 June (ib. p. 1028). In August, by the king's appointment, he accompanied Lancaster to the conference at Bruges, and must there have been in constant communication with Wyclif, who was one of the English commissioners. While in Flanders he received his pall. He returned to England in 1376, and was enthroned on Palm Sunday, 13 April. He was a member of Lancaster's party, was blamed by the enemies of Alice Perrers [q. v.] for causing her ‘magician,’ a Dominican friar, to be remitted to the custody of his order instead of having him burnt, and for not excommunicating Alice herself for breach of an oath that she had made before him (Chronicon Angliæ, pp. 99–100). At the meeting of convocation in January 1377 he tried to oppose the demand of the clergy that William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, then in disgrace, owing to the triumph of Lancaster, should be specially called upon to attend, but was forced by their insistence, and by William Courtenay [q. v.], bishop of London, to send for him. He was held to be neglectful of his duty with respect to Wyclif, and to have been urged to activity by his suffragans, and specially by Courtenay, who seems to have acted independently of him at the abortive trial of Wyclif on 19 Feb.

Sudbury crowned Richard II on 16 July 1377, and at the meeting of parliament on 13 Oct. expounded the needs of the kingdom in a speech founded on the text Matt. xxi. 5. Having received the bulls of Gregory XI against Wyclif, he wrote to the chancellor of the university of Oxford, notifying his intention of holding the inquiry demanded by the pope, and asking for doctors of divinity to be his assessors. Acting with Courtenay, he directed on 18 Dec. that an examination of the charges against Wyclif should be held at Oxford, and that he should be sent to London to appear before him and Courtenay, in accordance with their citation; but the hearing was postponed until after Christmas, and the place changed from St. Paul's to Lambeth, where early in 1378 Wyclif appeared before the archbishop in his chapel. Either during or before the opening of the proceedings the Princess of Wales sent the judges an order that they were not to proceed to sentence. While the inquiry was in progress the Londoners appeared in the chapel and made a disturbance. Sudbury bade Wyclif keep silence on the matters in question, and not suffer others to discuss them, and the proceedings ended. During that year he continued his visitation, begun in 1376, and was resisted by the abbey of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, over which, though an exempt