"My
Lord, with your leave, if you would consider the power and dignity
of your spiritual calling, you would not undertake the yoke of lay
servitude." But, unchecked by this rebuke, he gave offence to John by
foolishly trying to vie with the King in the richness of the raiment
given at Christmas to his retainers--an affront to John which a
sumptuous feast at Easter could not efface.
The chief grievance to the Augustine chapter at Canterbury was the
new foundation at Lambeth; they dreaded that Becket's relics might he
translated thither, and they never ceased appealing to Pope Innocent
III. till they had obtained an order for its demolition. This dispute
made them more than ever bent on an archbishop of their own choice.
Hubert died at Canterbury, July 18th, 1205, and the younger monks were
misled by party-spirit into the attempt to steal a march on the rest.
They assembled on the night of his death, and elected their sub-prior
Reginald, conducted him to the cathedral, placed him on the
archiepiscopal throne, and hurried him off in secret to Rome, with
strict injunctions not to divulge his election till he had obtained
confirmation of it from the Pope.
Reginald was as imprudent as might have been expected from his
acceptance of a dignity thus conferred; he had no sooner crossed the
sea, than he began to boast of his rank as archbishop-elect.
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