r royal
chaplain to the king. He had presided over the council of Clarendon, the
constitutions of which defined the king's prerogatives in regard to the
Church, and chiefly with regard to the question of trying clerks charged
with crimes in the civil courts. He was despatched to Rome on an embassy
to the Pope, Alexander III., and on its failure was sent by Henry to
the Diet at Wurzburg; the king, not having been supported by Alexander,
determined to uphold his opponent, and as well he, in direct opposition
to the Pope, made John of Oxford Dean of Salisbury, with the result that
the future Bishop of Norwich incurred the penalty of excommunication by
Becket from Vezelay, "for having fallen into a damnable heresy in taking
a sacrilegious oath to the emperor, for having communicated with the
schismatic of Cologne, and for having usurped to himself the deanery of
the church of Salisbury."

The dispute was referred to the Pope at Sens, where John of Oxford, with
his fellow-ambassador, Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, repaired; John
of Oxford was rebuked by the Pontiff for his misconduct, but
diplomatically managed to effect his end and retain his deanery. Henry
had met Becket at Chaumont, through the mediation of the Archbishop of
Sens, and, the quarrel being patched up, John of Oxford was sent to
escort him to England. He landed, December 1, at Sandwich, in the year
1170, and within the month was murdered at Canterbury.

In 1175, the incursion of William of Scotland was checked, and the king
himself taken prisoner by Ranulph de Glanville. John of Oxford and
others were commissioned to settle terms of peace; and they executed the
treaty of Falaice, afterwards ratified by King Henry at York, by which
the Scottish king and his barons were under the necessity of doing
homage for their possessions. John of Oxford, who had rendered good
service to his sovereign, was rewarded by promotion to the vacant see of
Norwich; and during his episcopate sent by the king on an embassy to
William, King of Sicily, to convey his majesty's consent to the marriage
of his daughter Joan with that monarch.

An important step in the administration of justice was taken during this
reign--the king divided the country into six circuits, to which certain
prelates and nobles were to be sent at certain times to hear suits and
save litigants the trouble of attending the king's court at Westminster.
John of Oxford was one of a company of five to whom was g