less proud of his splendid buildings, his regal state, and his equally regal personality. His appearance and manners corresponded with his character and his rank; he was tall in stature, dignified in bearing, remarkably attractive in look, eloquent and winning in address.[1401] Moreover, he had lived so long in England, and all his interests had so long been centred there, that for all practical purposes, social as well as political, he was a thorough Englishman--certainly far more of an Englishman than his young English-born cousin, King Richard. For the last eight years, indeed, he had held in the north much the same position as had belonged in earlier times to the archbishops of York; for the northern province had been without a metropolitan ever since the death of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque in November 1181,[1402] and the supreme authority, ecclesiastical as well as secular, had thus devolved upon the bishop of Durham. He was now threatened with the loss of this pre-eminence; but he had no intention of giving it up without a struggle, in which his chances of success were at least as good as those of his rival the archbishop-elect; and whatever the result might be with respect to his ecclesiastical independence, he had secured a formidable counterpoise to the primate’s territorial influence by his purchase of Northumberland, which made him sole head, under the Crown, of the civil administration of the whole country between the Tweed and the Tees. [1401] On Hugh of Durham see Will. Newb., l. v. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. ii. pp. 436–438), Geoff. Coldingham, cc. 1, 4, 11, 14 (_Script. Dunelm. III._, Raine, pp. 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14), and Stubbs, _Rog. Howden_, vol. iii. pref. pp. xxxiii.–xxxvii. [1402] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 283. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 10. Will. Newb., l. iii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 225).