Walter Hubert, Bishop of Salisbury, was also a Crusader, and a great friend of Richard, who, from his imprisonment, wrote letters to point him out as archbishop--a favor which he returned by great exertions in raising the King’s ransom. He was a completely worldly and secular priest, continually giving umbrage to his chapter, who used to complain of him to the Pope, and obtain censures, of which he took no heed. When Richard made him Grand Justiciary, they declared that it was contrary to all rule for him to be judge in causes of blood; whereupon the Pope ordered the King to remove him from the office, but without much effect. Sharing Richard’s councils, he had the same dislike to Constance and her son, and willingly crowned John, making a dangerous and disloyal speech, in which he pronounced the kingdom elective, and to be conferred on the most worthy of the royal family. He accepted the chancellorship from John, and was so fond of boasting of its riches and dignities, that he drew on himself a rebuke from Hugh Bardolfe, one of the rude barons. “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 be 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. These tidings coming back to England, his own supporters were ashamed of him, and, willing to have their transaction forgotten, joined with their elders, the bishops, and the King, in appointing John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, a man apparently of the same stamp as Hubert, as he was one of the Justiciaries, and little attentive to the affairs of his diocese. Twelve of the canons of St. Augustine were despatched to Rome to explain the affair to the Pope, offer him a present of 12,000 marks, and obtain the pall for Gray.