A.D . 1231.] ItALI'll Kl.ECTED AKCltRISHOP. plaints wore supporto] by justice and reason, immediately crave orders that the business or petition of that prelate should lo attended to, and due justice administered. The king's clerks pleaded a great many excuses in reply, on behalf of the king and the justiciary, but without effect ; for, to speak briefly, the archbishop's influence obtained for him whatever he demanded. Ile then, having completed his business to his satisfaction, set out on his return, but died on the journey at St. Gemma's, on the 3rd of August, and with him died also all the advantages which he had gained in the above business.* How Henri/ was dissuaded from marrying the sister of the king of Seats. In the same year in the month of October, the king of Kngland, having completed the castle of Matilda in Wales, returned to Kng land. He had determined then to marry the sister of the king of Scots much to the indignation of all the earls and barons ; for it was not proper, they stud, for the king to marry the younger daughter, when Hubert the justiciary was married to an elder one ; he was finally dissuaded from his purpose by the count of Brittany, and he then gave to that noble five thousand marks of silver, who then returned into his own country. Of the election of Hal}.h as archbishop of Canterbury, and its annulment. On the death of Richard archbishop of Canterbury, above related, the monks of Canterbury determined to demand as a chief priest over them, Ralph de Neville bishop of Chichester, who was the king's chancellor. Accordingly, after making the election, they on the 24th of September presented him to the king, who willingly accepted of him, as far as he was concerned, and immediately invested him in the manors and other possessions pertaining to the archbishopric. The monks, who were about to go to Rome, then went to the archbishop elect and asked him for assistance in defraying the expenses of their journey, but he plainly told them that he would not give them one farthing for that purpose. They nevertheless set out for Rome, and demanded of the pope a confirmation by the apostolic authority of the election or proposition they had made. The pope then caused an inquisition to be made, as it is said, by master Simon Langton as to the character of the proposed archbishop, and then replied that the archbishop elect was a courtier and an illiterate man, for which reason he annulled the said election and gave orders to the conventual assembly of Canterbury to choose a profitable pastor of • l'aria mills : " Connected with him a wonderful event occurred : his body, as was the custom, had licon laid out in his pontifical rohes to 1«· buried, and in the night some of the men of that country who had beheld his ornaments with a greedy eye, opened his eellin, wishing to steal his ring and oilier episcopal ornaments, but could not ctl'ecl ihcir purpose either by force or skill, on which thev went itway, healing their wicked breasts in alarm."