William Freney

[1] On 1 August 1263, Pope Urban IV instructed the Latin patriarch of Antioch, Opizo di Fieschi, to consecrate William to a diocese or archdiocese of his choosing in Arabia, Media or Armenia.

Good relations between Armenia and the Papacy were restored and, probably influenced by William, Hethum expressed a desire to establish a Dominican monastery in his kingdom.

On 12 February 1265, King Henry III assigned him the deanery of Wimborne for his maintenance until either he returned to his diocese or obtained another title.

In September, Henry revoked this grant and instead assigned William a yearly pension of 50 marks from the revenues of the manor of Havering.

[2] At the siege of Kenilworth in 1266, William tried to negotiate with the rebellious garrison on behalf of the besieging royalist army, but he was refused entry into the castle.

In November 1277, he was acting as a Papal nuncio when he wrote to Godfrey Giffard, bishop of Worcester, about collecting Peter's pence.

He was presumably buried in a Dominican friary and his tombstone removed during the dissolution to St Mary's Church in Rhuddlan, where it resides today.

Its inscription, in Norman French, reads, "Pray for the soul of Friar William Freney, archbishop of Rages".