Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/365

 secular clergyman that a Christian boy had been murdered by the Norwich Jews, and his body miraculously discovered, produced a profound sensation. Prior William at once threw the whole weight of his influence into the scale to support the truth of the story [see, 1132?–1144].

At the diocesan synod held next year, an unsuccessful attempt was made to revive the agitation against the Norwich Jews, and to bring about a general recognition of the ‘martyrdom’ of the murdered boy. Just about this time Bishop Eborard resigned his bishopric, and the Norwich monks, bringing some pressure to bear upon King Stephen, were allowed to elect their prior to the bishopric of Norwich, notwithstanding some strong opposition raised by a party at the head of which was John de Caineto, the sheriff (, bk. ii. § 15). Bishop William was accordingly consecrated by Archbishop Theobald some time in 1146.

His promotion to the episcopate, so far from making him relax in his efforts to promote the cult of the boy saint of Norwich, rather served to stimulate his zeal. He bore down all opposition on the part of the Norwich sceptics, and removed the body of the little martyr no fewer than four times from one burial-place to another, and each time to a position of greater honour in the cathedral, and in 1168 he founded and consecrated the memorial chapel of ‘St. William in the Wood’ on the spot where the boy's body was said to have been discovered. Some traces of the chapel still remain on Mousehold Heath about a mile from the city of Norwich.

Bishop William assisted at the consecration of Hilary, bishop of Chichester, in August 1147; of Geoffrey of Monmouth as bishop of St. Asaph in 1152; and of Roger Pont l'Evêque as archbishop of York at Westminster Abbey on 10 Oct. 1154. He was also one of the sixteen English prelates who assisted at the coronation of Henry II at Westminster on 19 Dec. 1154.

Meanwhile John of Salisbury [q. v.] had conceived a high opinion of Bishop Turbe, to whom many of his letters are addressed, some of them of considerable interest. He seems to have taken a prominent part in protesting against the imposition of scutage in 1156. The king returned a not uncourteous answer, but the scutage, he said, must be paid (, Ep. 128). The bishop was present at the submission of Hugh Bigod, first earl of Norfolk [q. v.], in May 1157, and his name appears among the signatories attesting a charter which Henry then granted to the priory. Two months later we find him attending the great council held at Northampton on 17 July. During the next five years we hear no more of him, but when Becket was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury on 3 June 1162, the bishop of Norwich was among those who took part in the ceremony. He was one of fourteen bishops who are said to have recognised the ‘customs’ at the council of Clarendon in January 1164 (, p. 67). When Archbishop Thomas retracted his assent, Bishop William and Joscelin, bishop of Salisbury, threw themselves at the feet of the inflexible archbishop, but could not move him ( i. 221).

When Becket took refuge with Louis VII in France, Bishop William returned to his diocese, and, during the years that followed, showed himself on all occasions a most staunch and uncompromising partisan of the archbishop. In fact, he was the one and only English bishop who from first to last never wavered in his fidelity to Becket. As far as he was personally concerned the crisis came as early as 1166, when the archbishop had been two years in exile. Robert de Vaux, a sub-tenant of Roger Bigod, father of the powerful Hugh, earl of Norfolk, had apparently early in the reign of Henry I founded a house of Augustinian canons at Pentney on the Nar, a few miles from Lynn, and this man's grandson, William de Vaux, was now prior of the monastery. Under great pressure exercised by Earl Hugh, who claimed them as lord of the fee, the prior had weakly surrendered certain estates of the monastery. The canons resisted the claim, protested against the surrender of the estates, and appealed to the pope to decide the matter.

In June 1166 Alexander III excommunicated the earl, and it now became the duty of the bishop of Norwich to promulgate the papal decree. To do so at such a moment was to incur the certain displeasure of the king, and to bring upon himself the fierce animosity of one of the most powerful earls in England. But Bishop William was not the man to hesitate or play the craven. Entering the cathedral church of Norwich with his pastoral staff in his hand, he mounted the pulpit and publicly pronounced the sentence of excommunication against the mighty earl, and, having thus discharged what he believed to be his duty, he laid his staff upon the high altar and solemnly defied any man, king or noble, to take it away; then he turned his back upon the episcopal palace, and once more took up his residence with the monks in the Norwich priory. The sentence against the earl was subsequently annulled, and on his submission he was ab-