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GRAY (or GREY), WALTER DE (d. 1255)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 395 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GRAY (or See also:GREY), See also:WALTER DE (d. 1255)  , See also:English See also:prelate and statesman, was a See also:nephew of See also:John de See also:Gray, See also:bishop of See also:Norwich, and was educated at See also:Oxford . He owed his See also:early and rapid preferment in See also:church and See also:state to the favour of See also:King John, becoming the king's See also:chancellor in 1205, and being chosen bishop of See also:Lichfield in 1210 . He was, however, not allowed to keep this bishopric, but he became bishop of See also:Worcester in 1214, resigning his See also:office as chancellor in the same See also:year . Gray was with John when the king signed Magna Carta in See also:June 1215; soon after this event he See also:left . See also:England on the king's business, and it was during his See also:absence that he was forced into the archbishopric of See also:York, owing his See also:election to the See also:good offices of John and of See also:Pope See also:Innocent III . He took a leading See also:part in public affairs during the minority of See also:Henry III., and was regarded with much favour by this king, who employed him on important errands to See also:foreign potentates, and left him as See also:guardian of England when he went to See also:France in 1242 . Afterwards the See also:archbishop seems to have been less favourably disposed towards Henry, and for a See also:time he absented himself from public business; however, in 1255, he visited See also:London to attend a See also:meeting of See also:parliament, and died at See also:Fulham on the 1st of May 1255 . Gray was always anxious to assert his archiepiscopal authority over See also:Scotland, and to maintain it against the archbishop of See also:Canterbury, but in neither See also:case was he very successful . He built the See also:south See also:transept of the See also:minster at York and bought for his see the See also:village, afterwards called Bishopthorpe, which is still the See also:residence of the archbishop of York . He was also generous to the church at See also:Ripon . Gray was regarded by his contemporaries as an avaricious, but patriotic See also:man .

End of Article: GRAY (or GREY), WALTER DE (d. 1255)
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