manor of Kempsey the night before the battle of Evesham, and the bishop said mass for him in the morning. After this he was suspended by Ottoboni and summoned to Rome. He therefore was not at the parliament in 1265. This may, however, have been in consequence of illness, as he died at his manor of Blockley on 12 Feb. 1266. He was buried in his cathedral, where his effigy may still be seen.
Some letters to him from Grosseteste, showing their intimacy and reliance on each other, will be found in the collection of Grosseteste's letters. There are some to him from Pope Innocent IV in the ‘Additamenta’ of Matthew Paris. Of his own composition there is nothing extant excepting the constitutions for his diocese in 1240. He founded the nunnery of Whiston or Wytestane, in the north part of Worcester, and began the fortifications of the manor house of Hartlebury.
With the exception of Bishop Grosseteste he must rank decidedly as the greatest bishop of his time; as an administrator of his diocese, a statesman, a vindicator of the rights of the country against tyranny of whatever kind, no one else can be compared to him. The proof of the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries is well seen by the words of the royalist chronicler Thomas Wykes, who says he would have merited canonisation had it not been for his adherence to Simon de Montfort.
[Annales Monastici, see especially the index as to the details of his work in the diocese of Worcester; Matthew Paris, Rishanger, the Chronicle and the separate treatise on the battles of Lewes and Evesham, printed in the Rolls Series by Riley as an appendix to the Ypodigma Neustriæ, Epistolæ R. Grosseteste (Rolls Series). The Constitutions for the diocese of Worcester are printed in Wilkins's Concilia, i. 665.]
CANTELUPE, WILLIAM de, first Baron Cantelupe (d. 1239), was the son of Walter de Cantelupe, and had the office of seneschal, or steward of the household, under John. He executed the office of sheriff for the counties of Warwick, Leicester, Worcester, and Hereford during part of John's reign. He is especially mentioned by Wendover as one of John's evil counsellors, and was not one of the confederate barons in 1215. In the earlier portion of John's reign he was one of the justiciars before whom fines were acknowledged; his name is among those who witnessed John's charter of freedom of election to sees and abbeys. He was in continual attendance on John, taking his side through the interdict and the civil war. After the entrance of the barons into London and their threats against those who had not joined them he seems to have wavered (Wendover; Matt. Paris, ii. 588). On John's death, however, he took the side of the young Henry, was at the siege of Mountsorrel Castle, of the custody of which he had a grant, and at the relief of Lincoln. He was again made sheriff for the counties of Warwick and Leicester, and was justice itinerant in Bedfordshire in 1218. He had the custody of Kenilworth Castle, where he usually resided. In 1224 he joined Ranulf Blundevil, the earl of Chester, in his rising against Hubert de Burgh; but he submitted at Northampton and surrendered his castles with the other barons in opposition. He was with the king at the siege of Bedford Castle in 1224, and was one of those who signed the confirmation of Magna Charta in 1236. He died at Reading in April 1239, and was buried at Studley, where he had built a hospital.
[Annales Monast. i. 104, 112, iii. 31, 87, 100, 122, iv. 430; Matt. Paris, ii. 533, 588, 610, iii. 15, 18, 83; Dugdale's Baronage; Foss's Judges.]
CANTELUPE, WILLIAM de, second Baron Cantelupe (d. 1251), is mentioned by Wendover, with his father, Cantelupe, William de (d.1239), the first baron [q. v.], as one of John's evil counsellors. He was also with him at the relief of Lincoln, and took the same line in his siding with Ranulf Blundevil and his subsequent submission. In 1238, after the dismissal of Ralph Neville, he was one of those to whom the great seal was entrusted (Tewkesbury Annals, p. 110). Though this was only a temporary appointment, he evidently continued high in the king's favour, as after his father's death he was appointed guardian of the kingdom during the king's absence in 1242, and in 1244 was one of the messengers chosen by the king to induce the prelates to submit to his demands for a subsidy. In 1245 he was sent to Lyons to complain of the Roman exactions, and in company with his colleagues refused the papal demands of the best prebend from every cathedral church, and a church worth forty marks from every abbey and priory (Dunstable Annals, p. 167). Like his father he held the office of seneschal, and Paris speaks especially of the king's affection for him. He died on 22 Feb. 1251.
His widow, Millicent, had the charge of Margaret, queen of Scotland, on her marriage (Matt. Paris, v. 272). She died in 1260 (Oseney Annals, 127).
[Annales Monast. i. 110, 143, iii. 159, 167, 181; Matt. Paris, ii. 533, iii. 18, 83, iv. 365, 420, v. 224, 225; Dugdale's Baronage.]
