"Most Holy Father, I protest, at the very beginning of my discourse, that I do not intend to assert or rashly to affirm anything which may clash with Christian faith or Catholic doctrine, and that it is not my intention to solicit, or even to advise, the abolition or retrenchment of the mendicant orders approved by the Church or confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiffs. But rather, it is my desire that these same orders be brought back to the purity of their original institution, and in this, also, I am ever ready to submit to the correction of your Holiness. And to approach my subject without delay, coming to London, Most Holy Father, about certain matters connected with my Church of Armagh, I found a dispute going on between certain learned doctors concerning the mendicant state and the mendicity of Christ our Lord and Saviour. After repeated invitations to preach to the people, I there delivered, in the vernacular, seven or eight discourses, and, always under the above-made protest, I defended in public nine conclusions, on account of which, and for what else I then said, the friars have appealed, though without reason, to this Holy See". The visit to London here alluded to took place in 1356, and, as we have seen, in 1357, the case was already under judgment at Avignon. For three whole years the archbishop remained at the Holy See, while a congregation of Cardinals, specially appointed for the purpose, took cognizance of the dispute. No official decision was given, but as the privileges of the mendicant orders were confirmed, and a letter sent to the English bishops commanding them to not interfere with the friars, it may be said that the Archbishop failed to make good his cause. Sec. IX. HIS DEATH. On the 16th November, 1360, according to Henry of Malmesbury, Richard Fitz-Ralph slept in the Lord at Avignon. "Of whom", says Fox,[26] "a certain cardinal hearing of his death, openly protested that the same day a mighty pillar of the Church was fallen".