Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/258

 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK superintended his education. The lad made the most of his opportunities, and earned a certain reputation for learning and eloquence, while his moral character was above reproach.^ The new bishop was before all things a monk, was deeply influenced by the spirit of monasticism, and in his infatuate zeal for the honour and glory of his own house, was quite likely even to subordinate the interests of the diocese to those of the monastery. Of his activity as diocesan indeed we hear almost nothing. He had a long and bitter quarrel with Walkelin, one of his predecessor's archdeacons, and in another quarrel with Hugh Bigot in 1166 he actually excommunicated the powerful earl for attempting to defraud the Augustinian canons of Pentney of some of their estates.^ It was an audacious act, but it did not stand alone. The very next year (1167) when Becket excommunicated his able and determined opponent Gilbert Foliot, bishop of London, Bishop William openly published that excommunication at a synod in Norwich Cathedral, and then, retiring from the episcopal residence, lived and resumed the monastic life in the priory. Three years later (i December, 1170) Becket returned to England and entered Canterbury in state next day. From this time during the following three weeks the primate kept up an animated correspondence with Bishop William and in a letter of 9 December he signified his intention of paying a visit to the bishop of Norwich. The intention was never carried out. On Tuesday, 29 December, the great archbishop was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral to the horror and consternation of the Christian world. During all the long conflict between Becket and Henry II no bishop in England showed himself a more stubborn and consistent supporter of the martyred primate than Bishop William. His obstinacy had something heroic in it and stood in the place of what in a nobler nature would have been called enthusiasm.* On 10 June, 1172, a disastrous fire broke out in the cathedral, which appears to have done great damage to the interior of the building.* Tradi- tion tells how the saddened bishop did his best to restore the injury, but it was left to his successor in the see to complete the restoration which Bishop William can only have begun when he died in January, 1 174.° From his first promotion to the bishopric in 1145, the great object which Bishop William had at heart seems to have been to make the ' martyred ' boy William a patron saint in the cathedral of Norwich. Between 1 142 and 1 172 the body was translated four times, and not content with this the bishop built and dedicated a chapel to his memory on Mousehold Heath, fragments of which might have been seen in the middle of the last century. Possibly Bishop William hoped to make the shrine a place of resort and ' This is abundantly clear from Robertson's Materials for the Life of Becket (Rolls Ser.), vi, 292, and from the letters of John of Salisbury during the papacy of Adrian IV (1154-9). The epistle numbered xxxiii is certainly wrongly addressed to Bishop Turbe. ' Jessopp, Hist, of the Diocese of tsonvtch, 71 ; Hoveden, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 232. ' His memorial verses on Becket are to be found in Gervase of Cant. Op. (Rolls Ser.), i, 232. have belonged at one time to the priory and was in great part the compilation of a Norwich monk. Hardy, Catalogue (Rolls Ser.) iii, 25. ' It is curious that the same uncertainty which exists as to the date of Bishop William Tirht's consecraticn is observable also in the discrepancies of the various dates given for his death. Gervase of Canterbury seems most to be lelied on, who gives the date as on the feast of SS. Fabian and Sebastian — i.e. 20 January. 224
 * This is the date given in the Chronicon Breve in Trin. Coll. Camb. This chronicle would seem to