WALTER DE

See also:

• CANTILUPE, THOMAS DE (c. 1218-1282)
• WALTER DE CANTILUPE (d. 1265)

CANTILUPE (d. 1265)  , bishop of Worcester, came of a family which had risen by devoted service to the crown . His father and his elder brother are named by Roger of Wendover among the " evil counsellors " of John, apparently for no better reason than that they were consistently loyal to an unpopular master . Walter at first followed in his father's footsteps, entering the service of the Exchequer and acting as an itinerant justice in the early years of Henry III . But he also took minor orders, and, in 1236, although not yet a deacon, received the see of Worcester . As bishop, he identified himself with the party of ecclesiastical reform, which was then led by Edmund Rich and Robert Grosseteste . Like his leaders he was sorely divided between his theoretical belief in the papacy as a divine institution and his instinctive condemnation of the policy which Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. pursued in their dealings with the English church . At first a court favourite, the bishop came at length to the belief that the evils of the time arose from the unprincipled alliance of crown and papacy . He raised his voice against papal demands for money, and after the death of Grosseteste (1253) was the chief spokesman of the nationalist clergy . At the parliament of Oxford (1258) he was elected by the popular party as one of their representatives on the committee of twenty-four which undertook to reform the administration; from that time till the outbreak of civil war he was a man of mark in the councils of the baronial party . During the war he sided with Montfort and, through his nephew, Thomas, who was then chancellor of Oxford, brought over the university to the popular side . He was present at Lewes and blessed the Montfortians before they joined battle with the army of the king; he entertained Simon de Montfort on the night before the final rout of Evesham . During Simon's dictatorship, the bishop appeared only as a mediating influence; in the triumvirate of " Electors " who controlled the administration, the clergy were represented by the bishop of Chichester .

Walter de

Cantilupe died in the year after Evesham (1266) . He was respected by all parties, and, though far inferior in versatility and force of will to Grosseteste, fully merits the admiration which his moral character inspired . He is one of the few constitutionalists of his day whom it is impossible to accuse of interested motives . See the Chronica Maiora of Matthew Paris (" Rolls " series, ed . Luard) ; the Chronicon de Bellis (ed . Halliwell, Camden Society) ; and the Annales Monastici (" Rolls " series, ed . Luard) ; also T . F . Tout in the Political History of England, vol. iii . (1905) .