Thomas Arundel - Ecclesiastical Career

Ecclesiastical Career

Arundel was papally provided as Bishop of Ely on 13 August 1373 entirely by reason of his father's status and financial leverage with the Crown during the dotage of Edward III, happily abandoning his student days at Oxford, from which he gained little pleasure. A hugely wealthy near-sinecure, Ely seems to have captured the young bishop's genuine interest until his brother's political opposition to Richard II's policies both at home and towards France grew rancorous and dragged him in. In an extremely grave crisis, teetering towards civil war, 1386-8, the bishop found himself, at least in formal terms, right at the front of the dangerous attempts by five leading temporal lords to purge the king's advisors and control future policy.

On 3 April 1388, Arundel was elevated to the position of Archbishop of York at a time when Richard II was, in effect, suspended from rule. Given Ely's wealth and ease, this promotion was clearly as much to do with status and consolidating the conspirators' control in the north as with remuneration.

Arundel served twice as Lord Chancellor, during the reign of King Richard II, first from 1386 to 1389, and again from 1391 to 1396. For whatever reason, the king, working his way astutely back into real authority, contrived to assure Arundel of his confidence right until the "counter-coup" of 1397, when the archbishop was deceived into bringing his brother out of hiding under a royal safe conduct—to his death. Throughout his life Arundel was more trustful than was good for him. Despite his political preoccupations, which certainly led to him being largely absent from York, he has been credited with sponsoring a lively revival of personal religious piety in the northern province. Besides, as was to prove the case at Canterbury too, he was also a very good spotter of administrative talent.

On 25 September 1396, Arundel was made Archbishop of Canterbury. The king's nomination seemed to wish him nothing but success. Yet, within a year, he was exiled by the king during Richard's fierce counter-attack against his enemies of ten years earlier, and was replaced by Roger Walden.

Arundel spent his exile in Florence, where in 1398, at Richard II's request, the Roman Pope Boniface IX translated him to become Bishop of St. Andrews, a cruel, empty fate because Scotland during the Great Schism recognized the Pope in Avignon, already had a bishop in place and would probably never have accepted him anyway, even in peaceful times. However, shortly afterwards, he joined up with his fellow-exile Henry Bolingbroke. Although not soul-mates, they invaded England together and forced Richard to yield the crown to Bolingbroke as Henry IV. Arundel played a hugely prominent part in the usurpation and may have been the most hawkishly determined of all that the king should be removed entirely: whether he actually lied on oath to Richard II to lure him out of Conwy Castle remains altogether open to debate. The new regime of course secured the reversal of several of Richard's acts, including the pope's installation of Walden at Canterbury. Arundel returned to his primacy, while Walden—actually with the support of Arundel—was eventually translated to the important see of London.

As the king collapsed into ill-health from 1405, Arundel returned to the front of government. At one point, he even took the sick king into Lambeth Palace itself for care. In 1405–06 he had to deal with the crisis with the papacy provoked by the king's decision to execute Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York who had participated in the Percy rebellion. Formally, under Henry IV, Arundel served twice as Lord Chancellor, first in 1399 and again from 1407 to 1410. When Henry IV's son succeeded as Henry V, Arundel's influence at court decreased.