This poet and scholar was a most active, thorough-going, practical man, and, when chosen as Bishop of Lincoln, showed his gratitude for the benefits of his education by maintaining a number of poor students at the University. He set himself earnestly to reform abuses in his diocese, forcing the monasteries which held the tithes of parishes to provide properly for their spiritual care, and making a strict inquiry into the condition of the religious houses. They, however, appealed to Rome; and Innocent, who had at first sanctioned his proceedings, was afraid of losing their support, and ordered Grosteste to desist. The resolute Bishop set off to Rome, and laid the Pope’s own letters before his face.
“Well,” said Innocent, “be content; you have delivered your own soul. If I choose to show grace to these persons, what is that to you?”
Robert was anything but content, but he went home, and manfully struggled with the evils that were rife, sometimes prevailing, sometimes disappointed, always honest and steadfast. The more gentle Archbishop gave up the contest, worn out by the vain attempt to preserve purity and order between the fickle King, the oppressive Pope, the turbulent nobles, and the avaricious clergy. Orders to him, to Robert, and to the Bishop of Salisbury, to appoint no one to a benefice till three hundred Italians were provided for, seemed finally to overpower him; he, with Richard Wych, secretly left London, and arrived at Pontigny, where, three years after, he died, in 1142, and has been revered as a saint.
Canterbury remained vacant for several years, the revenues being absorbed by the King, and the refractory chapter tailing upon them to quarrel with Grosteste, and going so for as to excommunicate him; whereupon the sturdy Bishop trod the letter under foot, saying, “Such curses are the only prayers I ask of such as you.”
After three years the King appointed to Canterbury the Queen’s uncle, Boniface of Savoy, a man of no clerical habits; but the Queen wrote a persuasive letter, by which she obtained the consent of Innocent.
So many monstrous demands had been made by the Pope, that, in 1245, the nobles sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize every despatch coming from Rome, and they soon made prize of a great number of orders to intrude Italians into Church patronage. Martin, the legate, complained to the King, who ordered the letters to be produced, but the barons took the opportunity of laying before the King a statement of the grievances of the Church of England, 60,000 marks a year being in the hands of foreigners, while the whole of the royal revenue was but 20,000. Henry could only make helpless lamentations, and, under pretext of a tournament, the Barons met at Dunstable, and sent a knight to expostulate with the legate. This envoy threatened him, that if he remained three days longer in England, his life would not be safe—an intimation which drove him speedily from the country.
The barons, hearing that the Pope was holding a council at Lyons, sent deputies thither, with a letter drawn up by the Bishop of Lincoln, so powerfully enforced by William de Powerie, their spokesman, that the exposure of the enormities permitted in England called up a deep blush on the face of Innocent, and he allowed that he had been wrong in thrusting in these incompetent Italians. There was one good effected at this council, namely, the appointment of Richard Wych to the see of Chichester.
Richard was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and was early, with his elder brother, left an orphan. He was a studious, holy, clerkly boy, looked on as fit for the cloister: but when his brother came of age, it was found that the guardians had so wasted their goods, that their inheritance lay desolate. The brother was in despair, but young Richard comforted him, bade him trust in God, and himself laying aside the studies he delighted in, look up the spade and axe, and worked unceasingly till the affairs of the homestead were in a flourishing state. Then, when prosperity dawned on the elder brother, the younger obtained his wish, and went to study at Oxford, where he was so poor that he and two other scholars had but one gown between them, lived hard, and allowed themselves few pleasures; but this he was wont to call the happiest time in his life.
Afterward he went to Bologna, and, after seven years there, returned, and was made Chancellor, first of Oxford, and afterward of Canterbury. There was a most earnest attachment between him and St. Edmund, whom he followed into his exile. The Bishop whom the King had appointed to Chichester was examined by Grosteste, and found deficient in theology, and the chapter and Pope agreed in choosing Richard Wych, who was consecrated by Innocent himself. Henry, in displeasure, took all the temporalities of the see into his hands, and for a year Richard lived at the expense of a poor parish priest named Simon, whom he strove to requite by working in his garden, budding, grafting, and digging, as he had once done for his brother.
He went about his diocese visiting each parish, and doing his work like the early bishops of poorer days, and all the time making his suit to the King to do him justice; but whenever he went to Westminster, meeting only with jests and gibes from the courtiers.