ch, King Henry gave part of the Palatine
Tower estate, which was turned into a churchyard and encircled with a
wall, which ran along Carter Lane to Creed Lane, and was freed of
buildings. The bishop, on his part, contributed to the service of the
altar the rents of Paul's Wharf, and for a school gave the house of
Durandus, at the corner of Bell Court. On the bishop's death, the Crown
seized his wealth, and the bishop's boots were carried to the Exchequer
full of gold and silver. St. Bernard, however, praises him, and says:
"It was not wonderful that Master Gilbert should be a bishop; but that
the Bishop of London should live like a poor man, that was
magnificent."

In the reign of Stephen a dreadful fire broke out and raged from London
Bridge to St. Clement Danes. In this fire St. Paul's was partially
destroyed. The Bishop, in his appeals for contributions to the church,
pleaded that this was the only London church specially dedicated to St.
Paul. The citizens of London were staunch advocates of King Stephen
against the Empress Maud, and at their folkmote, held at the Cheapside
end of St. Paul's, claimed the privilege of naming a monarch.

In the reign of Henry II. St. Paul's was the scene of a strange incident
connected with the quarrel between the King and that ambitious
Churchman, the Primate Becket. Gilbert Foliot, the learned and austere
Bishop of London, had sided with the King and provoked the bitter hatred
of Becket. During the celebration of mass a daring emissary of Becket
had the boldness to thrust a roll, bearing the dreaded sentence of
excommunication against Foliot, into the hands of the officiating
priest, and at the same time to cry aloud--"Know all men that Gilbert,
Bishop of London, is excommunicated by Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury!" Foliot for a time defied the interdict, but at last bowed
to his enemy's authority, and refrained from entering the Church of St.
Paul's.

The reign of Richard I. was an eventful one to St. Paul's. In 1191, when
Coeur de Lion was in Palestine, Prince John and all the bishops met in
the nave of St. Paul's to arraign William de Longchamp, one of the
King's regents, of many acts of tyranny. In the reign of their absentee
monarch the Londoners grew mutinous, and their leader, William
Fitzosbert, or Longbeard, denounced their oppressors from Paul's Cross.
These disturbances ended in the siege of Bow Church, where Fitzosbert
had fortified himself, and by the burning alive