with a receipt in it for the large sum of 1,500 marks of silver, then paid by Bury into the papal treasury.

Before his installation, Edward made him Treasurer of England first, and then Lord High Chancellor. This great office was conferred on him on the 26th Sept., 1334.* He did not long hold the seals; for in the next year he hands them back again to the King.†

Edward had ordered him to resign the seals that he might have him free to undertake more of that diplomatic work in which he had already shown himself to be an adept. All diplomatic work spells compromise, and Richard, with his peaceful and flexible character, his handsome person and dignified state, was well-fitted for such work. Nor did Edward hesitate to lay still more burdens on his old tutor's shoulders, one task following another. Thrice he had to go to Paris; he lets us know that he felt the charm and beauty of that fascinating city; he calls it the "Paradisus Orbis Parisius." In the eighth chapter of the Philobiblon we find a glowing account of his love for Paris : Blessed God in Sion! with what a flood of joy my heart rejoices, when I have the chance of staying a while in Paris, Paradise of the world! Our sojourn there seemed short, for the vast love we had for that city. In Paris there are pleasant libraries, sweeter than thyme; there are green paths of books of every sort; there, too, are the meads of Academe, full of life; there are the Peripatetics of Athens, the hilltops of Parnassus, the porches of the Stoics. When

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at Paris we threw open our treasure-chests, untied pursestrings, scattered money joyfully, as we rescued from sand and mud inestimable books. It is naught,' says the buyer-yet see how good and pleasant it is to gather

* Claus. viii, Edward III, m. 10. Yet on the 20th Sept., 1334, the King by letter makes a commission to inquire into the turbulence of Oxford, and places on it the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, the Bishop of Norwich, and Richard of Bury, whom he styles "R., Bishop of Durham, the Chancellor (see Rymer, Foedera, iv, 622).

† So recorded under 9 Edward III (1335).

us."*

together in a library the armour of clerkly warfare, ready to crush the attacks of heretics, if they fall on One can believe that Bury when in Paris was a frequent visitor to the Sorbonne,† that earliest of universities, in which lay, as his phrase runs, a "virtus infinita librorum," where even then books were books were to be bought at ancient stalls.‡

In these days a most unfortunate period of war impended over Europe; for in 1337 began what is sometimes called "The Hundred Years' War"; a proud attempt of English kings to hold part of the realm of France as a secondary lordship under England.

Bury also visited the Low Countries, and in company with the King's party, travelled up the Rhine, to meet the Emperor Louis, in 1338. In the year after this we find a letter from him, written when he lay at "Antwerpia in Brabancia." In these days he may have become a friend of that wonderful Low Countries' hero, John of Artevelde, who was inclined to lean on England at that moment. He had also to treat (it was but a vain attempt for peace), with Philip of Valois at Paris, with a view to a crusade to be undertaken by England and France together to the Holy Land; and this same year he was also charged with the difficult duty of allaying the serious quarrels of two rival counties of the north. He also had to work out the terms of the King's occupation of Gascony. Not long after this he was dispatched to make, if he could, peace between England and Scotland; and just before this had to sit on a commission which worked for some years to fix the bounds between Yorkshire and Westmorland; as to this commission several documents are in the Record Office. It was in these days that Bury

* Philobiblon, c. viii (ed. Thomas).

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† Philobiblon, c. ix, § 156, fere friguit zelus scholae tam nobilis, cujus olim radii lucem dabant universis angulis orbis terrae.

In Thomas's edition of Philobiblon, § 126, p. 69, a thirteenth century poem is quoted in praise of Paris, which declares that the city was one "civitates superans omnes modis mille."

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made a "concordat," as if between two great powers, between the other northern counties and the Palatinate of Durham. If felons," it runs, "or other scoundrels should take refuge from Northumberland, York, Cumberland, or Westmorland, within the franchise of the bishopric, they shall be handed over at once to the sheriffs, etc., of their respective counties, and similarly vice versa with the ruffians from the Durham Palatinate."

In 1338 a protection is granted to Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury and Bury, "to go over seas, at the instant request of certain Cardinals, who had come from Avignon to the King's Court." The records clearly show that this was a tossing kind of time. Powers to treat with the French King were granted, then revoked, then granted again. Men were fencing and playing before a great war. And Bury, with all his goodwill for peace, and influence over the King, could do nothing to stay the sword. We know how eagerly he desired a quiet time for England and for himself-war with France always meant trouble with Scotland; and that trouble fell heaviest on his Palatinate. His attitude towards war gleams honourably through his instructions to the Prior and Convent of Durham in 1340.* It shows his grave anxiety, and the relief provided by the destruction of the French fleet at Sluys.†

In 1338 we also find an interesting Release granted by Edward III of his claim on the valuable living of Symondsburn. This he did in accordance with a vow he had made before a battle with the Scots. Yet this transfer was to be dependent on the establishment by Bury of "quandam domum de quodam priore et duodecim monachis de capitulo ecclesiae Dunolmensis, super placeam prioris et Conventus Dunelmensis in suburbio villae Oxoniae ad studendum in universitate ibidem fieri faciant ad

* This Litera ad deprecandum pro Rege is reprinted in this volume from Surtees, xxi, p. 10.

† In 1340 we find in the Rolls that £1,341 48. 11d. were to be paid to Bishop Bury to defray the costs of his embassy to France.

sumptus nostros." The King, though the Oxford College was not then made in solid sort, granted to Bury the power to authorise the Prior and Convent to have the advowson of Symondsburn.

We now (3rd July, 1340) find Bury complaining of the exactions of Rome. In a letter to Pope Clement, to whom he was still attached by being, as he calls himself, "vester devotus orator," he declares that through constant procurations there is scarcely a living in his Diocese that is worth more than the sum laid down "ad quam per libertatem Sedis Apostolicae mandatur in forma communi pauperibus clericis provideri.”

Immediately after this Bury, with other men of note, was charged by the King to deal with the northern counties, for their aid against the impending invasion of the Scots. Finally, for the last five years of his life, he was able to be at home in his palatine bishopric. For this space of time, in spite of Scottish threats, he enjoyed a fairly quiet life. Home affairs occupy him; thus, in 1340, he has trouble with some men of the Robin Hood kind who poached in his privileges; there exists an order from the King of this year that the Bishop should have his rights as to whales and sturgeons cast ashore on his coast; these actually are said to be worth £3,000! The King's documents mention these jetsam rights as to fish, and also tell us that the deer in his forests, the trees, hares, rabbits, partridges, had been shamefully taken by poachers at this time. Signs these that the Bishop's absence on the King's affairs had weakened the discipline of the borderland; poaching and affrays with his bailiffs were far too common. One of the most curious of these difficulties, which shows us how much a firm hand was needed in these parts, can be seen in 1340 in the case of William l'Escheker, who had been sent by the Cathedral Monastery to the Cell of Coldingham, in Berwickshire. This person was afterwards guilty of great enormities; he was imprisoned

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"by reason of his extravagance, and the wasting of the goods of the house," and for other offences against the Order; and specially because he had wounded to death Brother Robert of Kellawe, "his fellow-monk and comrade." They had him in gaol, but he was bold and clever ; he broke out successfully, and no more is heard of him.

In this year, 1340, we find that Bury was joined with Gilbert of Umfraville, Earl of "Angos" (Angus), Henry of Percy, Ralph of Neville, and Wilfred le Scrop, as a commission to make the terms for a "final peace with the Scots. There seem to have been but poor results from their efforts.

The administration of justice sometimes went on in a way of its own: thus on one occasion, at Bradbury, in Durham County, Reginald and Emma his daughter were sitting by their fire and came to a quarrel, "litigaverunt ad invicem per verba," and as the daughter had the shrewder tongue, Reginald grew angry, and "wishing to chastise her" threw at her his stick, which was shod with iron at the foot, and hit her on the head with it, whereat she lay abed three days and then died. Reginald was had up to the Bishop's Court, and pleaded that he had not done it with thought of murder, "non per feloniam aut excogitatam malitiam," and therefore prayed for mercy. So Bury, as there was no distinction between murder and manslaughter in these times, freely pardoned him, and he escaped altogether unpunished.

Yet in spite of these dark incidents, we have evidence that he cared about the religious welfare of his great Palatinate. Thus, in 1343 or 1344, we find Hutchinson (Durham, vol. iii, p. 62) telling us that "Though a grant was made to hold a market on Friday (at Sedgefield), a custom prevailed of exposing merchandise on the Sabbath day, which, being complained of by John of