Sometimes, indeed very often, they were good men. The saintly Bishop Hugh of Lincoln came from Savoy. Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury was a Greek, who came from far-away Tarsus, the city of St. Paul. But some of them were bad men, haughty and insolent, who wanted to override English laws and English freedom. And when this happened the people were apt to rebel, and declare that only English Bishops should rule in the Church of England. Things came to a crisis when, in the thirteenth century, a great many Italians came over to England, and were given some of the highest offices in the country. Among them were two brothers of good birth, Peter of Savoy and his brother Boniface. Peter, who had a grand house in the Strand, called Savoy House, was made a Privy Councillor, and was given the chief seat at the King’s Council Board. Boniface, who was a priest, was, by the wish of the Pope, made Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, Boniface of Savoy had mistaken his vocation. He was young, and handsome, and full of roistering spirits; he would have made a good soldier, and doubtless his men would have admired him for his reckless daring; but he was haughty, and insolent, and overbearing, and sadly lacking in common sense--not fit to be placed in the great position in which he found himself. He brought with him a band of armed retainers, who, when they rode through the streets of London, robbed the stalls in the market-places as though they had been wild marauders, instead of the servants of a Christian Bishop. Their Master behaved no better than they did. There was in the City a monastery called St. Bartholomew’s, in Smithfield. He resolved to visit it, and, appearing at the gate with his men, demanded an entrance. For some reason the Prior resented this--perhaps Boniface’s insolent manner made him angry; perhaps he felt that it was the Bishop of London’s place to inspect his monastery, and not the Archbishop of Canterbury’s. At any rate, he refused to admit the Prelate. And what do you think happened? Without more ado the Archbishop clenched his fist, and knocked the Prior to the ground. It was a foolish as well as a wicked act, for of course the news of what had been done spread through London, and the citizens began to say to each other that a man who could do a deed like that was not fit to be an Archbishop.