For an event of even greater moment than the building of the church took place about this time. Early in the twelfth century, in order to quell some dispute that had arisen as to the authority of the Bishop of Lincoln over the Abbot of Ely, the Pope had consented, at the request of King Henry the First and Archbishop Anselm, that the Abbot of Ely should become a Bishop, with the Isle of Ely and the County of Cambridge as his See.[213] More than 700 years went by before any change was made in the extent of the diocese thus created; for it was not till 1837 that the counties of Huntingdon and Bedford and the western half of Suffolk were added to it. [Footnote 213: The county, at this time, comprised only the district south of the Isle. This ecclesiastical connection between it and the Isle was the first towards their later unification. See p. 8.] We owe to the creation of this Bishopric the very existence of Ely Minster as it now stands; had it remained merely an abbey, instead of being also a cathedral, it would have perished at the Reformation, along with the yet greater church at Bury St. Edmund's not far away, and with many another sister abbey throughout the land. At Ely, too, we should see before us ruined arches open to the sky, beautiful indeed and pathetic, but no longer a centre of worship. To this day the Bishop of Ely sits in his cathedral not as Bishop but as Abbot; not at the south-eastern but at the south-western end of the choir stalls, while the Dean occupies the seat once belonging to the Prior at the north-western end. Richard, as we have said, was the last of the Abbots of Ely who were Abbots and nothing else. Hervey, appointed in 1109, was the first Bishop-Abbot. He had already been Bishop of Bangor, whence he had been driven by a Welsh revolt. This may be the place to say something of the abnormal civil position held by the Bishops of Ely till recent times. Etheldreda, the foundress of the Abbey, reigned, as the widow of her first husband, Tonbert, over the whole Isle of Ely, and exercised therein the full Royal rights of secular jurisdiction. These rights passed on to the Abbesses who succeeded her, and then in turn to the Abbots who followed; they were confirmed by the Charter of Edgar in 970, and again by Edward the Confessor, and when the abbots became bishops they still continued to exercise this jurisdiction. Each succeeding Prelate enjoyed rights throughout the Isle somewhat resembling those of the Prince Bishops of the continent.