Like rigour was exercised against the other English prelates. Ethelric, Bishop of Selsey, and Ethelmer, of East Anglia, were deposed by the legate, and imprisoned by the king. Many considerable abbots shared the same fate: Ethelwine, Bishop of Durham, fled the kingdom. Wulstan, of Worcester, a man of inoffensive character, was the only English prelate that escaped this general proscription. Brompton relates that the last-named bishop was also deprived of his dignities by the synod; but refusing to deliver his pastoral staff and ring to any but the person from whom he first received it, he went immediately to King Edward's tomb, and struck the staff so deeply into the stone that none but himself was able to pull it out; on which he was allowed to retain possession of his dignity. Aldred, Archbishop of York, who had crowned the Conqueror, died about the same time. He left his malediction, it is said, to William, on account of the wrongs he had inflicted on the people. The deposing of Stigand gave the king an opportunity of paying a long debt of gratitude to Lanfranc, a Lombard priest, by raising him to the vacant dignity. This abbot had been sent by him shortly after his marriage with Matilda to the court of Rome, to obtain the Papal dispensation for their union, it having been discovered, after the ceremony had taken place, that they were related within the prohibited degrees. The new archbishop showed himself exceedingly unbending where the prerogatives of the primacy were in question. After a long contest before the Pope, he compelled Thomas, a Norman monk, who had been appointed to the see of York, to acknowledge his superiority, a point which had hitherto been warmly contested between the occupants of the rival sees. The zeal of the new primate in supporting the interests of Rome met with great success. It is true that William, during his reign, rarely felt inconvenience from it, for with his strong hand and iron will he kept the Church in subjection to the Crown, and would allow none to dispute his sovereign will and pleasure. He prohibited his subjects from acknowledging any one for Pope whom he himself had not previously received: he required that all the ecclesiastical canons, voted in any synod, should first be laid before him, and be ratified by his authority; even bulls, or letters from Rome, could not legally be produced, till they received the same sanction; and none of his ministers or barons, whatever offences they were guilty of, could be subjected to spiritual censures till he himself had given his consent to their excommunication; also, while agreeing that the tax on every house, known as Peter's pence, should be paid to the Pope, William proudly refused to do him homage.