John de Gray
De Gray continued in royal service after his elevation to the episcopate, lending the King money and undertaking diplomatic missions on his behalf.
Innocent consecrated Stephen Langton as archbishop against John's wishes, triggering a long dispute between the papacy and the King.
In 1209 he became governor of Ireland for John, and spent until 1213 attempting to impose a royal government on the Anglo-Norman barons and the native Irish in that country.
Recalled to England to help defend against a threatened invasion by the French, de Gray then travelled to Rome to secure a papal pardon after the final settlement of John and Innocent's dispute over the bishop's abortive elevation to Canterbury.
[3] The elder de Gray was instrumental in securing the selection of his nephew as Lord Chancellor,[2] as he was a surety for Walter's payment of a fine of 5000 marks to acquire the position.
In 1203 de Gray accompanied Archbishop Hubert Walter and several papal legates on an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to King Philip II of France.
[12] In 1203 some of de Gray's knights were part of the garrison at the castle of Vaudreuil in Normandy, serving under the command of Robert FitzWalter.
[13] When John abandoned Normandy in late 1203, effectively relinquishing control of the duchy to Philip, de Gray was one of his companions on the journey to the port of Barfleur, and went on to England with the king.
[14] John's attempt to impose de Gray's election as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1205 was the beginning of the king's long quarrel with Pope Innocent III.
After Hubert Walter's death in July 1205, the selection of a successor was hindered by doubts about what the proper procedure should be, something that commonly happened with elections to Canterbury.
John postponed a decision while delegations from the bishops of England and the monks of the cathedral chapter went to Rome to seek guidance from the pope.
[27] De Gray's chief policy in Ireland was to extend English rule, to which end he was involved in battles on the River Shannon and in Fermanagh.
In contrast, the historian Seán Duffy has argued that the native Irish nobility were just as resistant to John as the Anglo-Norman barons.
In 1212 he led a campaign against Áed Méith, in the promotion of which he constructed castles at Cáel Uisce, Belleek, and Clones,[c] bases for raids against the Ua Néill territory in the north.
[26] One of de Gray's final acts as justiciar was to take a force of Irish knights to England to help repel a threatened invasion by the French king Philip II.
[38] De Gray received a 1203 missive from Innocent III decrying the marriages of some secular clergy, in contravention of canon law.
[42] While in that city the bishop was named as one of the guarantors of a new financial arrangement between the king and the pope dealing with feudal payments from England, which lowered the lump sum that had to be paid before Innocent would lift the interdict.
[27] Matthew Paris, a medieval writer, called him an "evil counsellor",[1] and blamed many of the difficulties of John's later reign on de Gray's failed election to Canterbury.
