Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walpole, Ralph de
WALPOLE, RALPH de (d. 1302), bishop of Norwich and afterwards of Ely, was probably a member of the family of the Walpoles of Houghton, which since the early part of the twelfth century had possessed a competent landed estate in the fen country of West Norfolk and Northern Cambridgeshire. The family name comes from the village of Walpole, in the extreme west of Norfolk, a few miles north of Wisbech. Ely, where the family possessed a town house, was another centre of its estates. The future bishop can without much hesitation be identified with Ralph de Walpole, clerk, of Houghton, and son of John de Walpole, who in an undated deed gave a piece of land in Houghton to Thomas of Clenchwardetoun (Collins, Peerage, v. 30, ed. 1779; Rye, Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, i. 274). In that case he was the son of Sir John de Walpole and his wife Lucy. John was alive in 1254, and seems to have been succeeded by his son, Henry de Walpole, who fought with the younger Simon de Montfort against Edward in the Isle of Ely in 1267 (ib. i. 273), and died before 1305.
The younger brother Ralph adopted an ecclesiastical career. He became a doctor of divinity, possibly at Cambridge, where he possessed a messuage, which, on 21 June 1290, he obtained license to alienate in mortmain to Hugh de Balsham's new foundation of Peterhouse (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1281–92, p. 371). He became rector of Somersham, Huntingdonshire, and in 1268 appears as archdeacon of Ely, holding this preferment for at least twenty years. In March 1287 Archbishop Peckham addressed him a letter, ordering him to make personal investigation at Cambridge of certain slanders on Peckham and other bishops alleged to have been uttered by a ‘religious’ person at Cambridge (Peckham's Letters, iii. 943, Rolls Ser.).
At the death of William de Middleton, Walpole became bishop of Norwich. Edward I's license to elect having been obtained, the ‘via compromissi’ was adopted, and a committee of seven monks unanimously chose Walpole on 11 Nov. 1288. The election caused great dissatisfaction in the diocese, and everybody cursed the convent of Norwich, and in particular the seven electors (Cotton, pp. 169–170, who gives very full details of the whole election). A more friendly critic only praises Walpole for his industry (Wyke in Ann. Monastici, iv. 315). The bishop-elect at once proceeded to Gascony to present himself for approval by the king. He found Edward at Bonnegarde ‘in ingressu Aragoniæ,’ and obtained from him a cheerful consent to his election. On 25 Jan. 1289 Walpole was back in England, and on 1 Feb. visited Archbishop Peckham at South Malling, where his temporalities were restored and arrangements made for his consecration. Before confirming Walpole the scrupulous archbishop insisted that he should relinquish the grant of first-fruits which Bishop Pandulf [q. v.] had obtained from the pope to supplement the wasted revenue of his bishopric (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 404; Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 412). On 7 Feb. his temporalities were restored (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1281–92, p. 312). He was consecrated bishop by Peckham on Mid-Lent Sunday, 20 March, at Canterbury (Oxenedes, p. 272).
As bishop, Walpole took little part in politics, though his sympathies with the strong ecclesiastical and papalist party ultimately brought him into collision with the crown. He energetically supported Archbishop Winchelsea in his resistance to Edward I's excessive taxation of the clergy, and was one of the deputation headed by Richard de Swinfield [q. v.], bishop of Hereford, appointed on 20 Jan. 1297 to explain to Edward the clerical position (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 220). Walpole was one of the three bishops who persisted in refusing the king's demands after Winchelsea had allowed individual clerks to make a personal submission to the king's will (Rishanger, Chron. p. 475, Rolls Ser.)
Within his diocese Walpole showed great activity and energy. In the very first year of his bishopric he conducted a visitation (Cotton, p. 172). In 1291 he took some part in the movement for a crusade. He kept his promise to Peckham as to the levying of first-fruits fairly well, but not completely. It was almost set down as a merit to him that he did not take on this pretext a quarter of the sums that he might have exacted (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 404). In his time the building of the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral was begun, and the eastern and the southern sides still remain of his work. A stone on the south side bears an inscription to that effect (Genealogical Mag. October 1898, p. 242). He was tenacious of his rights, and had a long quarrel with the burgesses of his town of Lynn (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1292–1301, pp. 163, 441, 458).
In 1299 Walpole was translated to Ely. The election had been disputed between John Salmon [q. v.] and John de Langton [q. v.], who was supported by Edward I (‘Historia Eliensis’ in Anglia Sacra, i. 639–40, gives a detailed account of the conflict; cf. ‘Ann. Wigorn.’ in Ann. Monastici, iv. 542–3; Flores Hist. iii. 105–6). Ultimately Boniface VIII, who had been appealed to, induced both Salmon and Langton to resign, and directed the monks attending his court to proceed to a fresh election. But they could not agree even now, whereupon the pope, irritated at their conduct, took the appointment into his own hands. On 5 June 1299 he issued at Anagni a bull, translating the bishop of Norwich to Ely (Cal. Papal Letters, 1198–1304, p. 582; Flores Hist. iii. 105–6; Le Neve, Fasti Eccl. Anglicanæ, i. 332, erroneously dates the translation 15 July). This was doubtless the reward of Walpole's obstinate adherence to the principle of clericis laicos, and is likely to have been displeasing to Edward I. However, Boniface smoothed the way for his nominee by dealing liberally with the vanquished claimants. Langton was allowed to hold the rich archdeaconry of Canterbury in addition to his existing preferments. On 29 June Salmon was appointed by provision to Norwich, and allowed to impoverish Walpole's old see by charging it with the loan of thirteen thousand florins which he had raised to ‘meet his expenses at Rome’ (Cal. Papal Letters, pp. 582, 583). It is significant that Walpole's proctor at Rome, Master Bartholomew of Ferentino, canon of London, had also to contract loans of fifteen hundred marks and 200l. in his principal's name (ib. p. 590). These were also to ‘meet his expenses at Rome.’
On 10 Oct. 1299 Walpole received the temporalities of his new see (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1292–1301, p. 441; Le Neve, i. 332, is a year wrong). Walpole ruled Ely for less than three years. His chief endeavour was to reform the disordered discipline of the chapter, with which object he compiled and enforced a new body of statutes (Bentham, Hist. of Ely, p. 154). He died on 20 March 1302, the anniversary of his consecration as bishop (Cotton, p. 395). He was buried on 1 April in his cathedral, under the pavement of the presbytery before the high altar. Hervey de Staunton [q. v.], the justice, was one of his executors (Cal. Close Rolls, 1313–18, p. 20).
[Bart. Cotton, Annales Monastici, Oxenedes, Rishanger, Flores Historiarum, all in Rolls Ser.; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 412, 638, 639; Cals. of Patent Rolls, 1281–91, 1292–1301; Bliss's Cal. of Papal Letters, 1198–1304, pp. 582, 583; Wilkins's Concilia, ii. 220, 271, 404; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Anglic. i. 332–3, 350, ii. 462 (ed. Hardy); Godwin, De Præsulibus Angliæ, pp. 259, 433, 1743; Stubbs's Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, p. 48; Jessopp's Diocesan Hist. of Norwich, pp. 105–9; Bentham's Hist. and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Ely, pp. 153–4; Rye's Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, i. 267–84, collects nearly all that is known of the early history of the Walpole family; cf. Notes on the Walpoles in Genealogical Mag. October 1898.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.274
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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