It is true that Richard of Ilchester was excommunicated among several other persons on the same day, but we are not told that this was the charge laid against him. John of Oxford himself soon afterwards got release from the pope and was restored to his deanery at Salisbury, having explained the Wurzburg incident and having sworn that he had done nothing to the injury of the Church or of Alexander. We must conclude, then, that the oath taken at Wurzburg was capable of two interpretations, and that the emperor was deceived as to the pledge which he supposed was being made on behalf of the English king.
With the events here narrated John Cumin was not directly concerned: but his own earlier mission had helped to lead up to them, and we shall presently find him again suspected of playing with schism. Meanwhile, in the middle of July 1166 he was with the king in Brittany, where he attests three charters in the camp outside Fougeres, to which Henry was laying siege.[1] Then in November the king sent him and Ralph de Tamworth to Rome whither the papal court had now returned. They were successful in obtaining the promise of a mission of legates with full powers to settle the controversy between the king and the archbishop: these legates were to start in January 1167. At Rome John Cumin met with John of Oxford and Reginald archdeacon of Salisbury, son of Bishop Jocelin of Salisbury and afterwards bishop of Bath. John of Oxford, as we have seen, was under sentence of excommunication for a double offence. Apart from the question of his oath at Wurzburg, he was in trouble about his deanery of Salisbury, to which he had got appointed in an irregular manner. Jocelin, his bishop, had taken his part, and had thereupon been suspended by Becket. Reginald, Jocelin's son, had come to plead his father's cause. To Becket's intense chagrin John of Oxford found favour with the pope, and was absolved and reinstated.[2]
In a letter dated 2 February 1167 John bishop of Poitiers, a steadfast friend of Becket, recounts that he had met John Cumin and Ralph de Tamworth at Tours on their return from Rome.[3] He had not been able to get much out of them directly, but he had learned something from the dean of St Maurice, with whom they had stayed.[4] The dean and another clerk had informed him that William, cardinal of Pavia, and Otto were coming as legates. John of Oxford's success with the pope was said by John Cumin and Ralph de Tamworth to have been gained by his assuring the pope that the king could be reconciled if properly approached by such a person as himself; and they called him a traitor for this. They had further told the dean that they had got copies of Becket's letter to the pope against the king, and also similar letters from unsuspected bishops and members of the royal household, but who the writers were they refused to say. John Cumin boasted more particularly that he had got the letter beginning 'Satis superque', which had been taken from Becket's
