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ALEXANDER NEVILE.
that he received his full honorarium. It still remains
uninjured, in all its solemn beauty, singularly rich in
design and colour, fitly terminating a choir which is
perhaps exceeded by no cathedral in England in the
majesty of its proportions.
Between the death of Thoresby and the year which
probably witnessed the completion of the great work
which he began, four Archbishops occupied the episcopal
chair,—Alexander Nevile, Thomas Arundel,
Robert Waldby, and Richard Scrope. Nevile's life
was a chequered one. Little is recorded of him in
connection with the diocese except his quarrels with
the canons of York and Beverley, and his erection of
additional towers and buildings to the archiepiscopal
castle of Cawood. He attached himself as a devoted
adherent to the cause of Richard II., a devotion
which proved fatal to his own interests. Knighton
says that he exasperated the party who took up arms
against Richard by the advice he had given that
sovereign to set aside some Act of Parliament by his
own arbitrary exercise of power. However that might
be, when he saw that Richard's cause was lost he
went into voluntary exile, and after living some time
in great poverty he surrendered his see, and Pope
Urban V. translated him to that of St. Andrew's, in
Scotland. But the Scots, who refused to recognize
Urban as Pope, declined altogether to receive Nevile
as their bishop, and he passed the remainder of his
life
at Louvain, eking out the small stipend of a parish
priest there by teaching a school. He died in 1392.
He was succeeded by Arundel, whose history belongs
to Canterbury, to which he was translated in 1396,