Page:Somerset Historical Essays.djvu/152

 of being in orders. All these charters belong to the later years of Bishop Reginald's episcopate; for the earliest shows us Alexander as the subdean, which points to the years 1186-7, and the bishop died in 1191.

K. Richard had been followed on his Crusade by Baldwin, the devout and strenuous archbishop of Canterbury. In fact Baldwin was the first to reach Acre; but there, encouraging and blessing the motley host, he passed away in November 1190. A year afterwards Bishop Reginald was elected to Canterbury (27 Nov. 1191); but within a month he died, on the morrow of Christmas Day. The new bishop of Bath was Savary, cousin to Bishop Reginald, a strange adventurer to whom Wells owes little or no gratitude. He had followed the king to Sicily, and had secured the promise of any bishopric that should fall vacant in his absence. As the first was Canterbury, and Savary was not yet in priest's orders, he schemed for Reginald's appointment as primate, and for his own succession at Bath. While still abroad he got his plans through, and he was consecrated at Rome on 20 September 1192. But he had much more to do before he returned. K. Richard was taken prisoner at the end of that year, and Savary saw a new opportunity. He was in the forefront of the negociations [sic] for the king's release, for he claimed cousinship with the Emperor Henry. The see of Canterbury was still unfilled: why should he not now take Reginald's place? So the captive king against his will wrote to commend him to the monks of Christ Church, though he also wrote secretly to secure the appointment of Hubert Walter. When this scheme had failed, Savary fell back on another which he had previously taken in hand. The great abbey of Glastonbury lay in his new diocese. As the archbishop was the abbot of the monks of his cathedral church of Canterbury, and as Winchester, Worcester, and Bath itself had a like arrangement, why should Savary not be the abbot of Glastonbury and make that also a cathedral church? There would be no more quarrels then between bishop and abbot, and the bishop of Bath and Glastonbury would be a great prelate indeed. So the emperor made the king agree to this new proposal. But the forces with which Savary had to reckon were greater than he had supposed, and the chief part of his episcopate was taken up with his long fight with the monks, which he carried on largely from abroad. At last after various successes and reverses the matter was brought to a conclusion, not quite as Savary wished, yet much in his favour. For the new and strong pope Innocent III decided that he should be styled the bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, taking a fourth part of the abbey's estates