empress, he was not forgetful of the ties that bound him to the king. When Bishop Henry received the empress at Winchester in March 1141, he pressed the primate to acknowledge her. Theobald hesitated, and, when he met her by arrangement at Wilton, declined to do her homage until he had received the king's permission, on the ground that it was not lawful for him to withdraw his fealty from a king who had been acknowledged by the Roman church (Historia Pontificalis, c. 2; Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 130; Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 65, 260). He therefore proceeded to Bristol, where the king was imprisoned. On 7 April, however, he attended the council at Winchester at which Matilda was elected. Having avowedly joined the side of the empress, he was with her at Oxford on 25 July and at Winchester a few days later, and shared in her hasty flight from that city on 13 Sept., reaching a place of safety after considerable danger, and perhaps some loss (Gesta Stephani, p. 85). On Stephen's release on 1 Nov., Theobald returned to his allegiance. It is asserted that sentence of banishment was pronounced against him (‘proscriptus’); but if so, it did not come into effect (Historia Pontificalis, c. 15), and he was present at the council held by the legate on 7 Dec. at which Bishop Henry declared his brother king. At Christmas he received the king and queen at Canterbury, and placed the crown on the king's head in his cathedral church (Gervase, i. 123; Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 137–8).
Theobald attached to his household many young men of legal and political talent, and made his palace the training college and home ‘of a new generation of English scholars and English statesmen’ (Norgate, Angevin Kings, i. 352). Chief among them were Roger of Pont l'Evêque [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of York, John Belmeis [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of Lyons, and Thomas (Becket) [q. v.], his successor at Canterbury, who entered his service in 1143 or 1144. On all matters Theobald consulted with one or other of these three, and chiefly with Thomas (William of Canterbury, ap. Becket Materials, i. 4). It is interesting to find that the former abbot of Lanfranc's house established a law school at Canterbury, and was the first to introduce the study of civil law into England. Possibly before 1144 Theobald sent for a famous jurist, Vacarius of Mantua, to come and lecture on civil law at Canterbury [see Vacarius]. Vacarius became the archbishop's advocate, and must have been of great use to him in his correspondence with the Roman court, which was of unusual importance, for the appointment of Bishop Henry as legate caused a division of authority in the church of England, and brought Theobald much trouble. Bishop Henry pushed his authority as legate to the utmost; he tried to persuade Innocent to make his see an archbishopric, and it was believed that the pope had even sent him a pall (Annales Winton. ii. 53; Diceto, i. 255).
Theobald opposed the wishes of the king and Bishop Henry with reference to the election of their nephew, William of Thwayt [see Fitzherbert, William] to the archbishopric of York, and steadily refused to consecrate him. Bishop Henry, however, consecrated him on 26 Sept. 1143, without the archbishop's sanction (Gervase, i. 123). The supersession of the archbishop encouraged resistance to his authority. Hugh, abbot of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, claiming that his house was under the immediate jurisdiction of Rome, appealed to the pope against a citation from the archbishop. The pope took his side, and finally ordered that the matter should be heard before the legate. At a council held by the legate at Winchester a composition was arranged which did not satisfy the archbishop. Theobald was thwarted by the legate even in his own monastery. He found that Jeremiah, the prior of Christ Church, was setting aside his jurisdiction; a quarrel ensued, and Jeremiah appealed to Rome, almost certainly with the legate's approval, and went thither himself. Theobald deposed him, and appointed another prior. Jeremiah, however, gained his cause, and on his return was reinstated by the legate. On this Theobald withdrew his favour from the convent, and vowed that he would never celebrate in the church so long as Jeremiah remained prior (ib. pp. 74, 127).
The death of Innocent II on 24 Sept. 1143 put an end to the legatine authority of Bishop Henry, and he was no longer able to supersede Theobald in his own province. In November, Theobald went to Rome accompanied by Thomas of London; Bishop Henry also went thither, hoping for a renewal of his commission, but the new pope, Celestine II, deprived him of the legation, though he does not appear to have granted it to the archbishop (ib. ii. 384). Celestine was strongly in favour of the Angevin cause, and is said to have ordered Theobald to allow no new arrangement to be made as to the English crown, as the matter was contentious, thereby guarding against any settlement to the prejudice of the Angevin claim (Hist. Pontif. c. 41). Lucius II, who succeeded Celestine on 12 March 1144, also refused the legation to Bishop Henry (John of Hexham, c. 17). While Theobald was in Rome Lucius heard
