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 monastery, he claimed jurisdiction as ‘legatus natus.’ The convent appealed to the pope, and the matter was not settled at Sudbury's death (, cols. 2155–6). Sanctuary having been violated at Westminster by the followers of Lancaster, who slew a man in the abbey church, Sudbury, after some hesitation, excommunicated all concerned in the offence, excepting Lancaster by name. He was prompt in upholding Urban VI against the cardinals, and preached against the schism. In a convocation held in November some constitutions were published in his name, one of them regulating the stipends of priests engaged to celebrate private masses. In March 1379 he was appointed on a commission to examine the accounts of the last subsidy and the state of the revenue.

He succeeded Sir Richard Scrope [q. v.] as chancellor on 27 Jan. 1380 (Fœdera, iv. 75), and in his speech at the opening of parliament at Northampton in November announced the need of a grant, which was met by a poll-tax. On the rising of the commons in 1381 the Kentish rioters broke into the archbishop's prison at Maidstone on 11 June, releasing and carrying off with them the priest, John Ball (d. 1381) [q. v.], whom Sudbury had caused to be imprisoned as excommunicate apparently about six weeks before. At Canterbury they destroyed the archbishop's goods, and on the 12th sacked his manor-house at Lambeth. Sudbury was with the king and the other ministers in the Tower, and the rebels by their messengers demanded that he should be delivered up to them, declaring that he and the other ministers were traitors, and being specially hostile to him because they were excited against him by John Ball. He resigned the chancellorship. In common with the treasurer, Robert de Hales, he urged the king not to meet the rebels, whom he is said to have styled barefooted ruffians, but to take measures to subdue them, and, this being reported to the mob, they swore that they would have his head. On the 13th the Kentish men occupied Tower Hill, and loudly threatened his life. Early on Friday, the 14th, he celebrated mass before the king, and remained in the chapel after Richard had left the Tower. As soon as the king had gone the Kentish men entered the Tower, and made one of the servants show them where the archbishop was. He had passed the previous night in prayer, and was awaiting their coming. As they rushed into the chapel they cried ‘Where is the traitor to the kingdom, where is the spoiler of the commons?’ To which he replied, ‘You have come right, my sons; here am I, the archbishop, neither a traitor nor a spoiler.’ They dragged him forth, and took him to Tower Hill, where a vast crowd greeted him with yells. Seeing that they were about to slay him, he warned them that if they did so he would certainly be avenged, and that England would incur an interdict. After he had spoken further, and granted, so far as in him lay, absolution to the man, one John Starling of Essex, who stood ready to behead him, he knelt down. He was horribly mutilated by the axe, and was not killed until the eighth blow. The treasurer and two others were slain with him. His head was placed on a pole, with a cap nailed upon it to distinguish it from those of the other victims, was carried through the streets, and finally placed on London Bridge; his body remained where it lay for two days. Six days after his death Sir William Walworth [q. v.], the mayor, caused both his head and his body to be conveyed reverently to Canterbury, and the archbishop was buried in the cathedral on the south side of the altar of St. Dunstan, where a canopied monument, which still exists, was erected to him. A large slab of marble was placed to his memory in St. Gregory's, Sudbury. A portion of his epitaph has been preserved (, Funeral Monuments, pp. 224–5, 743–5).

Though learned, eloquent, and liberal, Sudbury lacked independence of character. Adhering to John of Gaunt rather than, as became his office, taking his own line, he was led to neglect his duty as archbishop, and was only stirred to activity by Courtenay, to whom he sometimes acted a secondary part. He seems also to have been in the habit of speaking with too little thought for the feelings of others. His murder caused him to be regarded as a martyr, miracles were worked at his tomb, and he was compared to his predecessor, St. Thomas (, Vox Clamantis, i.c. 14). Nicholas Hereford [see ] is reported to have said that he deserved his death for blaming Wyclif.

Besides his work at Sudbury he rebuilt the west gate and a great part of the north wall of the city of Canterbury, and, the nave of the cathedral being in a ruinous state, pulled down the aisles, and laid the foundation of, and perhaps began, the two new aisles of the nave that were afterwards finished, probably with money that he had provided. In 1378 he set on foot a collection for the rebuilding, promising forty days' indulgence to those who helped in it. In 1379 the archdeacon of Canterbury (Audomarus de la Roche) being an alien and an adherent of the French king, Sudbury received from Richard the tempo-