John de Gray

For the ice hockey defenceman, see John de Gray (ice hockey).

John de Gray
Bishop of Norwich
Diocese	Diocese of Norwich
Appointed	about 7 September 1200
Reign ended	18 October 1214
Predecessor	John of Oxford
Successor	Pandulf Masca
Other posts	Archdeacon of Cleveland Archdeacon of Gloucester Archbishop-elect of Canterbury Bishop-elect of Durham
Orders
Consecration	24 September 1200
Personal details
Died	18 October 1214(1214-10-18) Saint-Jean-d'Angély, Poitou
Buried	Norwich Cathedral

John de Gray (died 18 October 1214) was a medieval English Bishop of Norwich, as well as being elected Archbishop of Canterbury, but was never confirmed as archbishop. He was employed in the service of John of England both prior to John becoming king as well as afterwards, being rewarded with a number of ecclesiastical offices culminating with his pro forma election to Norwich in 1200. De Gray continued in royal service after his elevation to the episcopate, loaning the king money as well as serving on diplomatic missions. In 1205, King John wished to reward de Gray with a translation to the archbishopric of Canterbury, but a disputed election process led to de Gray's selection being quashed by Pope Innocent III in 1206.

Innocent then consecrated Stephen Langton as archbishop against John's wishes, leading to a long dispute between the papacy and the king. This in turn led to various papal sanctions against England and John; at one point resulting in de Gray being one of only two valid bishops still operating in England. In 1209, however, de Gray became governor of Ireland for John, and spent until 1213 attempting to impose royal government on the Anglo-Norman barons, as well as the native Irish. Recalled to England in 1213 to help with a threatened invasion of England by the French, de Gray then travelled to Rome to secure a papal pardon after the final settlement of John and Innocent's dispute over the bishop's attempted elevation to Canterbury in 1205. After securing a pardon, de Gray was appointed as Bishop of Durham, but he died in October 1214 while returning to England from Rome, before he could be installed at Durham.

De Gray was the uncle of Walter de Gray, who secured the office of Lord Chancellor with his uncle's help in 1205. Besides his royal service, the bishop also built a palace in his diocese as well as several castles in Ireland. Although reviled by one contemporary writer as an "evil counsellor" to the king, modern historians have been more forgiving, with one praising his intelligence and others stating that de Gray was one of the few men that King John trusted throughout his life.

Early life

Although some describe de Gray as a native of Norfolk, he was likely descended from the Norman knight, Anchetil de Greye. De Gray was the uncle of Walter de Gray, later Archbishop of York. The elder de Gray was instrumental in securing the selection of his nephew as Lord Chancellor, as the elder de Gray was a surety for the younger de Gray's payment of a fine of 5,000 marks in order to secure the chancellorship.

De Gray entered Prince John's service by 1196, and was keeper of John's seal by 1198. After John's accession in 1199 he became Archdeacon of Cleveland in March 1200 and Archdeacon of Gloucester before April 1200. He also served as John's secretary, as well as frequently serving as a deputy of the Lord Chancellor, Hubert Walter. Shortly after John's accession to the throne, de Gray traveled from the continent to England for a while, and for the first two years of John's reign was active in the royal chancery, sealing royal charters.

De Gray was elected Bishop of Norwich about 7 September, although the election was purely pro forma, as acknowledged by a contemporary writer, Roger of Howden, who stated that the new bishop "succeeded to the bishopric of Norwich by the gift of King John". De Gray was consecrated on 24 September. The consecration took place along with that of the new Bishop of Hereford, Giles de Braose, and took place at Westminster at the conclusion of a provincial church council held by Archbishop Walter, which de Gray attended. It was Walter who performed the consecration ceremony, held in a chapel of the monastery.

Bishop of Norwich

While bishop, de Gray often loaned the king money, and on one occasion held the royal regalia as security for the repayment of a loan. Besides financial efforts, the bishop also served as a royal justice. In 1203 de Gray went with Archbishop Hubert Walter of Canterbury on a diplomatic mission to King Philip II of France. This embassy came to nothing, even though they were accompanied by papal legates. Philip demanded that John's niece Eleanor of Brittany or his nephew Arthur of Brittany be surrendered to the King of France as well the ceding of all of John's lands on the continent, none of which John was prepared to concede. After the failure of their mission, the bishops returned to England and Philip invaded Normandy.

In 1203, some of de Gray's knights were part of the garrison at the castle of Vaudreuil in Normandy serving under the command of Robert FitzWalter. Although they had provisions and King John was moving in support of the troops, in the summer of 1203, the garrison surrendered to King Philip II of France shortly after a siege had begun. When the king abandoned Normandy in late 1203, effectively giving up control of the duchy to Philip, de Gray was one of the companions on the journey to the port of Barfleur as well as going on to England with the king.

Archbishop-elect

King John's attempt to force de Gray's election as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1205 started the king's long quarrel with Pope Innocent III. After Hubert Walter's death in July 1205, the selection of a successor was hindered by doubts about what the proper procedure should be. King John postponed a decision while delegations from both the bishops of England and the monks of the cathedral chapter went to Rome to seek guidance from the pope. The bishops of the province of Canterbury claimed the right to a say who who was elected, as whoever was chosen would be their superior. According to canon law, it was the monks of the cathedral chapter who had the right to elect the new archbishop. Balanced against these claims, the king also had a say in the election, as the archbishop was a major tenant-in-chief and was traditionally one of the main royal advisors.

While the delegations from the various parties were in Rome, the monks of Canterbury decided to hold a secret election and elected one of the monks, Reginald, to be archbishop. Reginald was sent to Rome to join the delegation. When King John found out that the monks had elected someone without any regal input he forced the monks to elect de Gray as archbishop. Some stories have the election of Reginald taking place before the sending of the first delegation to the papal curia. Another source, Gervase of Canterbury, has the king telling the chapter they could choose their own nominee after six months, while the king secretly sent envoys to Rome to secure the election of de Gray. A further story, coming from Roger of Wendover, stated that the monks elected Reginald before Walter was even buried, and that only a small portion of the cathedral chapter – the younger ones – participated in the election. Wendover wrote in the 1230s and he was not a monk of Canterbury, so it is unlikely he is recording a true account.

De Gray was postulated to Canterbury on 11 December 1205, which meant that Innocent was faced with two different candidates for the office. The pope, however, decided to try to compromise, and both Reginald and de Gray's nominations were quashed by the pope about 30 March 1206. Innocent's reason for invalidating de Gray's election was that any election was invalid if an earlier one was still under appeal to the papacy. The monks then elected, with Innocent's approval, Stephen Langton. Although both the monks and the pope accepted Langton, John did not approve of Langton as archbishop, and Innocent's consecration of Langton in 1207 led to an eight year struggle between John and Innocent over the rights of the king to secure the election of his choice as archbishop. John refused to allow Langton to enter England and exiled the Canterbury monks. Innocent placed an interdict on England in 1207 and John countered by confiscating the income and estates of any clergy who enforced the papal interdict. Innocent then excommunicated John in 1209, but John was not concerned until 1213. The struggle led to the exile of many of the English clergy and the king also imposed large financial demands on the church in England. By 1209, only de Gray and Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, were the only English bishops not in exile or dead.

In Ireland

By 1209, de Gray was in Ireland serving as governor there for the king, an office that is occasionally referred to as justiciar for Ireland. One possible reason for his appointment to Ireland was to keep him from being accused of ignoring the interdict on England. As a bishop, it was de Gray's ecclesiastical duty to enforce the interdict, but by going to Ireland, which was not under interdict, he could continue to serve the king without angering the papacy. His policy while there was to extend English rule, and was involved with battles on the River Shannon and in Fermanagh. Another policy was to replace the Irish coinage with English coins. He also attempted to make English laws run in Ireland, but was unsuccessful. De Gray's governance of Ireland took place during a time of change in Irish governmental practices.

When the king was persecuting William de Braose in 1209, Braose was given shelter by William Marshall on Marshall's Irish lands. When de Gray demanded that Marshall surrender Braose to Gray on charges of being a traitor, Marshall refused, and told de Gray that since Marshall held some lands from Braose, it would be an act of treason for Marshall to surrender his lord to an outside authority. This sheltering of Braose did not embitter de Gray towards Marshall, who, in 1212, was praised in a letter from the bishop to the king.

In 1210, John led an expedition to Ireland to try to bring the Anglo-Norman barons under control. As part of this, John negotiated with the native Irish kings, and some accounts state that his negotiations were so successful that the native Irish submitted to the king. However, the historian Seán Duffy has argued that this was not the case, and that the native Irish nobility were just as resistant to the king as the Anglo-Norman barons. When John returned to England, he ordered de Gray to build three new castles in Connacht. One of these castles was at Athlone. Connected with the castle building were two military invasions of Connacht by the royal government – one from Meath and Leinster and the other from Munster. De Gray left Ireland in 1211 to visit Wales, and his deputy while he was gone was Richard de Tuit.

De Gray also faced resistance from the northern Irish, and in 1212 he led a campaign against Áed Méith. Connected with this campaign, de Gray constructed castles at Cáer Uisce, Belleek, and at Clones. These castles served as bases for raids against the Ua Néill territory in the north. A naval campaign was also launched, but nothing came of these efforts. De Gray suffered a defeat at the hands of Cormac O'Melaghlin in 1212 at Fircal, Offaly. De Gray left Ireland and his office there in 1213. For a while after he left Ireland, he continued to hold the office of governor, but by July 1213 he had been replaced by Henry de Loundres, the Archbishop of Dublin.

Episcopal affairs and later career

As bishop, de Gray settled a long running dispute between the monks of his cathedral chapter and the bishops. He also allowed the monks of his cathedral chapter the right to appoint and replace the clergy of the dependent churches of the cathedral. De Gray was the addressee of a 1203 missive from Pope Innocent III decrying the continuing practice of some secular clergy being married, in contravention of canon law. In more secular matters, he granted the town of Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn) the right to hold a weekly market as well as two fairs per year. He also built a palace at Gaywood.

De Gray's ability to raise money made him useful to King John. In 1213, de Gray mustered 500 knights during a period when King Philip II was threatening to invade England, bringing this force over from Ireland along with mounted men-at-arms to support the king in England. In May 1213, John and Innocent finally resolved the dispute over Langton's election to Canterbury, and part of the settlement was that John gave Ireland and England to Innocent and received them back from the pope, making John a papal vassal. The settlement was sealed with a treaty, and de Gray was one of the witnesses to the document. After John settled with the papacy, de Gray was not included in the general pardon, and had to go to Rome to receive a pardon. While in Rome, the bishop was named as one of the guarantors of a new financial arrangement dealing with feudal payments for England between the king and the pope that lowered the lump sum that must be paid prior to the lifting of the interdict by Innocent. After obtaining a pardon, Innocent recommended de Gray's election as Bishop of Durham in 1213; but de Gray died while returning to England at Saint-Jean-d'Angély in Poitou on 18 October 1214. He was buried in Norwich Cathedral, but the tomb does not survive.

Besides encouraging his nephew's career, de Gray also took into his household two of the household clerks of Hubert Walter – David and Robert of Ruddeby. Another clerk employed by de Gray was Robert de Bingham, who was in the bishop's household during the papal interdict on England and later went on to be a theology teacher at Oxford and Bishop of Salisbury in 1228.

Besides de Gray's ability to raise large sums of money for John, de Gray remained close to John for the rest of the bishop's life. Sidney Painter, a historian and biographer of John, said of de Gray that he was "probably the only man whom John trusted absolutely and without reservation for the whole period of their association". Ralph Turner, another medievalist and biographer of John, called de Gray "one of John's greatest favourites". A third biographer of John, W. L. Warren, described de Gray as "one of the best brains of the royal administration". Matthew Paris, a medieval writer, called him an "evil counsellor"; Paris also blamed much of the difficulties of John's later reign on de Gray's failed election to Canterbury.

References

• Barlow, Frank (1988). The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042–1216 (Fourth ed.). New York: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49504-0. 
• Cheney, C. R. (1956). From Becket to Langton: English Church Government 1170–1213 (Reprint ed.). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. 
• Cheney, C. R. (1967). Hubert Walter. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons. OCLC 1097086. 
• Duffy, Seán (1999). "John and Ireland". In S. D. Church. King John: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-947-8. 
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. 
• Gillingham, John (2001). The Angevin Empire (Second ed.). London: Hodder Arnold. ISBN 978-0-340-74115-3. 
• Greenway, Diana G. (1971). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: volume 2: Monastic cathedrals (northern and southern provinces): Durham: Bishops. Institute of Historical Research. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33859. Retrieved 11 September 2007. 
• Greenway, Diana G. (1971). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: volume 2: Monastic cathedrals (northern and southern provinces): Worcester: Archdeacons of Gloucester. Institute of Historical Research. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=33885. Retrieved 11 September 2007. 
• Greenway, Diana G. (1999). Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 6: York: Archdeacons of Cleveland. Institute of Historical Research. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=7207. Retrieved 11 September 2007. 
• Haines, Roy Martin (2004). "Gray, John de (d. 1214)" (subscription or UK public library membership required). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11541. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11541. Retrieved 8 November 2007. 
• Harding, Alan (1993). England in the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052131612x. 
• Harper-Bill, Christopher (1999). "John and the Church of Rome". In S. D. Church. King John: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-947-8. 
• Huscroft, Richard (2005). Ruling England 1042–1217. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 0-582-84882-2. 
• Jones, J. A. P. (1971). King John and Magna Carta. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-31463-1. 
• Knowles, M. D. (1938). "The Canterbury Election of 1205–6". The English Historical Review 53 (210): 211–220. doi:10.1093/ehr/LIII.CCX.211. 
• Lyon, Bryce Dale (1980). A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England (Second ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-95132-4. 
• Orpen, Goddar H. (1907). "Athlone Castle: Its Early History, with Notes on some Neighboring Castles". Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland: 257–276. 
• Otway-Ruthven, A. J. (1993). History of Mediaeval Ireland. New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 1-56619-216-1. 
• Poole, Austin Lane (1955). From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 1087–1216 (Second ed.). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-821707-2. 
• Powell, J. Enoch; Wallis, Keith (1968). The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. OCLC 463626. 
• Powicke, Sir Maurice (1960). The Loss of Normandy 1189–1204: Studies in the History of the Angevin Kingdom (Second ed.). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-5740-X. 
• Richardson, H. G. (September 1942). "Norman Ireland in 1212". Irish Historical Studies 10 (10): 144–158. 
• Turner, Ralph V. (2005). King John: England's Evil King?. Stroud, UK: Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-3385-7. 
• Vincent, Nicholas (2002). Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics 1205–1238 (Reprint ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52215-3. 
• Warren, W. L. (1978). King John. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03643-3. 
• Wood, Herbert (1921–1924). "The Office of Chief Governor of Ireland, 1172–1509". Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 36: 206–238. JSTOR 25504230. 
• Young, Charles R. (1968). Hubert Walter: Lord of Canterbury and Lord of England. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by John of Oxford	Bishop of Norwich 1200–1214	Vacant Title next held by Pandulf Masca
Preceded by Hubert Walter	Archbishop-elect of Canterbury 1205–1206 set aside by Pope Innocent III	Succeeded by Stephen Langton
Preceded by Richard Poore	Bishop-elect of Durham 1214 Died before enthronement	Succeeded by Morgan