In 1175, the incursion of William of Scotland was checked, and the king himself taken prisoner by Ranulph de Glanville. John of Oxford and others were commissioned to settle terms of peace; and they executed the treaty of Falaice, afterwards ratified by King Henry at York, by which the Scottish king and his barons were under the necessity of doing homage for their possessions. John of Oxford, who had rendered good service to his sovereign, was rewarded by promotion to the vacant see of Norwich; and during his episcopate sent by the king on an embassy to William, King of Sicily, to convey his majesty's consent to the marriage of his daughter Joan with that monarch. An important step in the administration of justice was taken during this reign--the king divided the country into six circuits, to which certain prelates and nobles were to be sent at certain times to hear suits and save litigants the trouble of attending the king's court at Westminster. John of Oxford was one of a company of five to whom was given jurisdiction over a portion of the country, from Norwich down to Sussex, and from Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire eastward to the coast. On the 9th of July 1189, King Henry died, and was succeeded by his third son, Richard: John of Oxford assisting at the coronation. Richard had no sooner been crowned than he led the crusade to the Holy Land, which had been preparing in Henry's time, and John of Oxford was forced to proceed to the Pope to ask for his absolution of the oath he had taken to follow the Cross, on account of his old age and infirmity. This request being granted, for which he had to pay 10,000 marks, he returned to England. The last public act of John of Oxford--who was one of the most remarkable men who have held the see of Norwich--was most probably his attendance at the coronation of King John. He died June 2, 1200. #John de Grey# (1200-1214) was elected by the monks, and his election being confirmed by King John, he was consecrated by Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was during his episcopate, and through the quarrel between King John and the Pope, that the power of the latter was at length firmly established--a supremacy that was unquestioned until the sixteenth century. The metropolitan see of Canterbury fell vacant in 1205; the sub-prior, who was surreptitiously elected by the monks, and unknown to the king, travelled to Rome for the Pope's sanction of his appointment. When the king became aware of this he was enraged, and despatched an embassy upholding his nominee, John de Grey. The Pope pleased neither party, and named Stephen Langton as Hubert's successor. The Pope, Innocent, sent two legates, of whom Pandulph was one, in 1211 to England, and on John declining to recognise the Papal claims, he was deposed, and his crown offered to the French king Philip.