De Inventione, c. 20) on 6 Jan. 1066; but Florence of Worcester (sub an.) says that Harold was crowned by Aldred, which from Harold's conduct in 1060 seems far more probable (Norman Conquest, iii. 616–22).
After the defeat and death of Harold, Stigand joined in electing Edgar Atheling [q. v.] to succeed him, but met the Conqueror at Wallingford, and submitted to him (William of Poitiers, p. 141). The story of his leading the men of Kent to meet William in arms and forcing him to confirm their privileges is a mere fable (Thorn, col. 1786), and so, too, is the assertion that he refused to crown William (Will. Newb. vol. i. c. 1), who was crowned by Aldred, Stigand taking part in the ceremony. Against his will he accompanied William to Normandy in 1067, and was received honourably at the churches and monasteries of the duchy. On his return he consecrated Remigius of Fécamp to the see of Dorchester (Norman Conquest, iv. 132; Gir. Camb. ed. Dimock, vii. 151). Though this seemed to indicate that his position was stronger, the king must have determined to displace him. No credence is to be given to the statement that he engaged in a widespread revolt (Gesta Abbatum S. Albani, i. 45). When, at William's request, the papal legates visited England in 1070, they cited Stigand before them on 11 April. Various charges, including perjuries and homicides, were made against him, and he was condemned on three counts—for usurpation of the archbishopric in the lifetime of Robert and using his pall, for receiving his pall from a schismatical pope, and for holding the see of Winchester in plurality (Orderic, p. 516; Flor. Wig. sub an.). He appealed to the good faith of the king, who had at least treated him as though he acknowledged his claim, but was deprived of both his sees, and placed by the king in custody at Winchester (see Norman Conquest, iv. 333), where he remained until his death. Unless he escaped, was retaken and again committed to prison (ib. n. 2), which is improbable, he could not, as is alleged (Historia Eliensis, p. 227), have been one of the companions of Hereward in the Isle of Ely in 1071.
Part at least of Stigand's property was left to him. William of Malmesbury relates that he received only a small sum from the treasury, and would spend nothing of his own upon himself; that Queen Edith or Eadgyth (d. 1075) [q. v.] and others of his friends tried to persuade him to dress and live more comfortably, and that he swore that he had no means, but that after his death it was discovered that he had a buried treasure, and that a key was found round his neck that opened a case containing a list of his moneys and deeds (Gesta Pontificum, p. 37; cf. Gerv. Cant. ii. 363). He appears to have died in 1072 (Annales de Wintonia sub an.), his obit being 22 Feb. (Stubbs). He was honourably buried in the cathedral abbey of St. Swithun, Winchester. He was covetous and unscrupulous. He is said to have wrongfully held lands belonging to the monasteries of Ely (Historia Eliensis, p. 220) and Abingdon (Chronicon de Abingdon, i. 462). On the other hand, he gave rich gifts to Ely (u. s), to Winchester a large cross with the figures of St. Mary and St. John with drapery of gold and silver, bought with money that he received from Queen Emma (Annales de Wintonia, an. 1047), and to St. Augustine's, Canterbury, among many other benefits, a large cross covered with silver (Gervase, i. 70; Thorn, col. 1785).
[Authorities cited in text.]
STILL, JOHN (1543?–1608), bishop of Bath and Wells, and reputed author of ‘Gammer Gurton's Needle,’ was only son of William Still of Grantham, where he was born about 1543. He matriculated as a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1559, graduated B.A. in 1561–2, M.A. in 1565, B.D. in 1570, and D.D. in 1575. From 1562 to 1572 he was fellow of the college, having taken holy orders. He remained an active member of the university for more than thirty years, and at an early period acquired a reputation for learning. He came to know Gabriel Harvey and Edmund Spenser, the former an undergraduate of Christ's (from 1561) and the latter of Pembroke Hall. Harvey credited him with being ‘an excellent philosopher, a reasonable good historian, a learned divine, and a wise man’ (Harvey, Works). Sir John Harington [q. v.] benefited by his instruction, and wrote that Still had given him ‘some helpes, more hopes, all encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more religious, and from whom I never went but I parted better instructed. … His breeding was from his childhood in good literature and partly in musique. … I hold him a rare man for preaching, for arguing, for learning, for lyving: I could only wish that in all these he would make lesse use of logique and more of rhetoricke’ (Nugæ Antiquæ).
Church preferment was Still's ambition, and he was not disappointed. On 20 Oct. 1570, after failing to obtain the rectory of St. Martin Outwich, London, from the Merchant Taylors' Company, he was admitted
