citations (ib. p. 197). He was quarrelling with the archbishop of York on the ancient question of the right of the northern primate to have his cross borne erect before him in the southern province, and it is significant that Edward wrote to the curia upholding the archbishop of York's claim. But Winchelsea still controlled the clerical estate, and won his last triumph when he induced the clergy to reject the law proposed by Edward in the parliament of April 1305 forbidding the export of specie from alien priories.
In November 1305 the election of Edward's vassal and dependent, Bertrand de Goth, as Clement V, gave the signal for Edward's long-deferred attack on Winchelsea. Among the special ambassadors sent to the new pope's coronation on 14 Nov. 1305 were Bishop Langton and the Earl of Lincoln, who very effectively poisoned the pope's mind against Winchelsea. By absolving Edward from his oath to the forest charters Clement destroyed the result of Winchelsea's most hard-won victory, while by decreeing that Edward should not be excommunicated or censured without papal permission he deprived Winchelsea of his most effective weapon. In January 1306 Winchelsea sent Walter Thorp, dean of arches, to Lyons to counteract Langton's machinations (Ann. Londin. p. 144). But on 12 Feb. Clement suspended Winchelsea from his spiritual and temporal functions, and cited him to the curia within two months. On 24 Feb. the envoys came back to London. Next day Winchelsea also arrived, having terminated a visitation of the diocese of Winchester that he had eagerly undertaken on the death of the exempt bishop. He was now unable to resist Archbishop Greenfield bearing his cross erect through London streets (Ann. Londin. p. 144; cf. Lit. Cantuar. i. 30–31).
Winchelsea received intelligence of his deprivation on 25 March, and at once visited the king to beg for his intercession. A stormy scene ensued. Winchelsea showed some confusion and craved the king's benediction, just as if his sovereign were his ecclesiastical superior. Edward overwhelmed him with reproaches, accusing him of pride, treason, and pitilessness, and declaring that either he or the archbishop must leave the realm. On 5 April Edward declared to the pope that Winchelsea's presence threatened the peace of the land. Winchelsea went down to Dover priory, where on 18 May the citation to the curia was delivered to him (Ann. Londin. pp. 144–5). Early next day he took ship for the continent. He remained in exile for the rest of Edward's life.
Winchelsea found the papal court established at Bordeaux, so that even in his banishment he did not quit Edward's dominions. The worry and fatigues in which he had been involved culminated in a stroke of paralysis, from which he never wholly recovered. He scornfully rejected the proposal to resign his archbishopric or to accept translation to another see. He felt that he was but treading more completely in the footsteps of St. Thomas (Birchington, i. 16). His reputation for sanctity became greater, and it was believed that the death of his enemy, Edward I, was revealed to him at Bordeaux in a vision (Flores Hist. iii. 328).
Winchelsea's suspension was so much a political measure that the accession of Edward II and the disgrace of his arch enemy Langton removed the only obstacles to his reinstatement. On 16 Dec. 1307 the new king urged Clement to restore Winchelsea, and on 22 Jan. 1308 the pope issued from Poitiers letters removing his suspension (Lit. Cantuar. iii. 385–6; Cal. Papal Letters, ii. 33). On the same day Clement, at Winchelsea's request, revoked a former nomination of a commission of English bishops to crown Edward, on the ground that the right of coronation belonged exclusively to Canterbury. On 28 Jan. Winchelsea appointed the bishop of Winchester to act on his behalf, as he was unable through ill-health to be back in time to officiate in person. This punctiliousness necessitated the postponement of the coronation from 18 Feb. to 25 Feb. The archbishop returned to England in March or April (Canon of Bridlington, p. 33; Ann. Paul. p. 263). On 14 April he made a long-deferred composition with the Count of Boulogne, who had been irritated by not obtaining his usual dues from a new archbishop, through Winchelsea not having passed through his territories on his earlier journeys to the continent (Lit. Cantuar. iii. 388).
Within a few weeks of Winchelsea's return Piers Gaveston [q. v.] was banished. The archbishop headed his suffragans in threatening excommunication to the favourite if he disobeyed the baronial edict (Ann. Londin. p. 155). He thus renewed from the first his relations with the opposition, and was soon more hostile to Edward II than to his father. His goods were not restored until November, but during his absence William Testa, the papal administrator, had taken such care of his estates that he was now ‘a richer man than ever he had been before’ (Murimuth, p. 13; cf. Anglia Sacra, i. 51). At the parliament of
