york00orns

ii8
YORK.
There was yet another element of danger and
weakness to the Church, as regarded her spiritual
functions, when the power of the crown was unaccompanied
by a stern sense of principle and of
duty in him who wore it. The Church was dependent
on the crown in like manner as the baronage.
Just as a minor came under the wardship of the
king, and with that wardship the profits of his lands
accrued to the sovereign till the expiration of its
period, so also during the vacancy of a bishopric, or
of an abbey, the revenues belonging to it passed into
the sovereign's hands. When that sovereign was
alike profuse and unscrupulous, as was the case with
the Red King, it is needless to say what the issue
was. Again and again did that sovereign defer the
appointment of successors to vacant sees. And it
carried even a worse evil along with it. It promoted
the growth of simony. Unscrupulous ecclesiastics
bid one against another to secure some high and
lucrative position in the Church, and utter corruption
was the inevitable result. The see of York does not
at this time furnish an example, for Thomas of
Bayeux's long episcopate witnessed Rufus's tragical
end ; but it is recorded that when that sovereign fell
by some unknown hand in the glades of the New
Forest, one archbishopric, four bishoprics, and eleven
abbeys were devoid of pastors.
Archbishop Thomas did not long survive the Red
King. He is said by Malmesbury to have crowned
Henry 1. But this is doubtful. His death took
place at York on the i8th Nov., iioo, after an episcopate
of about thirty years. He was buried in the