#Ralph Walpole# (1299-1302), Bishop of Norwich, was, on the death of Bishop Louth in 1298, translated to Ely; the prior, John Salmon, who had been elected by the monks, being made instead Bishop of Norwich. Walpole had been formerly Archdeacon of Ely. He revised the statutes of the monastery during the short time that he held the see, which was less than three years. The next bishop, #Robert Orford# (1302-1310), like his predecessor, Hugh Belsham, was consecrated at Rome, though not, as he had been, by the pope himself. The Archbishop of Canterbury had refused his consent to the appointment on the ground that the elect was illiterate, but the pope overruled the objection. He died at Downham in 1310. A monk of the house, #John Keeton# (1310-1316), succeeded. King Edward II. visited Ely in his time, and while there settled the controversy between Ely and S. Albans as to the true place where the body of the proto-martyr of England was deposited. The remains of S. Alban had been carried off to Denmark by the Danes, after plundering the abbey raised to his honour, and recovered by a trick. At a later time, fearing again an attack from the Danes, the Abbot of S. Albans sent to Ely a chest containing (so he said) the relics of the martyr for safe custody. When the troubles were over, the monks of Ely sent back the chest, but with other bones in it, supposing that they had thereby secured the true relics for their own church. So the Abbot of S. Albans declared that they were not the true relics that he had sent to Ely, but that he had buried them in a fresh place in his own church. The king, in 1314, decided the matter in favour of S. Albans. At the death of Bishop Keeton in 1316 the bishopric was conferred upon #John Hotham# (1316-1337), Chancellor of the Exchequer. Bentham calls him Prebendary of York and Rector of Collingham; Browne Willis calls him Provost of Queen's College, Oxford, and Chancellor of the University, and S.T.P., being the first bishop in his list who is credited with any university degree. He was a man of great eminence both as a bishop and as a statesman. In his political capacity he was Lord Chancellor. He was employed more than once on foreign embassies. He was one of the commissioners to arrange a truce between England and Scotland after the Battle of Myton in 1319, at which he had been present. He was made special commissioner to settle the troubles in Gascony. In his ecclesiastical capacity he added much landed property both to the see and the monastery. He erected the choir, providing for the building of the western bays after the fall of the tower. He obtained confirmatory charters from the king, and also a grant giving to the prior and convent the custody of the temporalities of the see during a vacancy, upon paying to the king, as long as their custody lasted, at the rate of L2000 a year. He died, "vir prudens, Justus, et munificus," in 1337.