Unhappily, Henry became deeply involved in the ecclesiastical politics of the time. The good Turstin, the benefactor of the Abbey, had been succeeded at York by William, who was accused of having obtained his preferment by bribery. William had cleared himself of this charge before a competent council, and had been consecrated archbishop by the direction of the Pope. But he had not received the pall when the Pope died, and Eugenius, a pupil of St. Bernard, became Pope in his stead. Bernard believed in the guilt of William. He prevented the new Pope from investing him with the pall. Bernard’s representative in England was the Abbot of Fountains, who had already made a journey to Rome to protest against William’s appointment. When, therefore, this ill news came to the archbishop’s friends in Yorkshire, and they looked about for somebody on whom to visit their indignation, Henry Murdac seemed the person most eligible to that distinction. So they set out, a considerable company of them, well armed, and made their way with clamor of voices into the secluded valley, and forced the monastery gates and sacked the place. Much they broke, some they plundered, and the rest they set on fire. There it blazed, then, that great work, built, as they said, in the sweat of their own brows--_in suo sudore constructa_. The church, however, escaped great injury. Indeed, the abbot himself, who was lying prostrate at the foot of the altar, was not discovered, being protected by the hand of God. It is likely that the buildings which were thus destroyed were temporary structures, for the most part, made of wood. Whatever damage was done was speedily repaired. The neighbours came in--_de vicinia viri fideles_--and the reconstruction was undertaken with such zeal that the new was better than the old. Then the chapter-house was built, and the dormitory over it down to the river, and the guest-house by the bridge. To this time belong also the north walls of the malthouse and the bakehouse. The fire took place in 1146 or 1147. This violence was much more disastrous to the archbishop than to the abbot, for the Pope deposed William and confirmed Henry, who was elected in his place. Thus the monastery lost its third abbot. It is interesting to remember that William was vindicated after all. When Henry died, in 1153, a friendly Pope restored the deposed archbishop to his place. One of William’s first acts on entering his diocese was to visit Fountains, to express his contrition for the harm which his friends, without his knowledge, had committed, and to promise proper compensation. When he died, he was enrolled among the saints, and the Abbot of Fountains was one of the judges who decided that he was worthy to be canonised.