A.D. 1232. HUBERT DE BUBGH DEFECTED OF OFFICE. according to his custom, to occupy himself in burning and plundering. But the king having made a careful estimate of how much money was contained in the royal treasury, found that there was much less deposited there than he had supposed. Therefore, he required a strict account from his ministers, and deposed Ranulph, surnamed the Breton, the treasurer of his chamber, from his office, and, throwing him into prison, compelled him to purchase his release at a high price. And in all these matters he relied on the advice of the bishop of Win , cheater, and very angrily removed from his office Hubert de Burgh, justiciary of the kingdom, although he had a charter of the king to guarantee him the perpetual enjoyment of his dignity ; and the king appointed in his stead Stephen de Seagrave, on the twenty-ninth of July. And he demanded an account of his treasures, and he levied against Hubert the most enormous accusations, charging him even with lése majesté ; and, as the king now attacked him, many others rose up against him, and accused him of many things, among whom the citizens of London, impeaching him, as it were, of wickedness, in the matter of the hanging of Constantine, their fellow citizen, required his blood at his hands, with great earnestness demanding that justice should be done them for so great an injury. But when Hubert heard of all this, he fled to the church of Merton, and concealed himself there among the canons. The same year, in the course of the autumn, Master John . Blund, a student at Oxford, and a reader in theology, was elected to the archbishopric of Canterbury, and having been received as such by the king, he went with some monks 01 Canterbury to Rome, to procure the confirmation of his election from the Apostolic See. About the same time, the king, because of the debts for which he was soil bound to the count of Brittany, and which had been contracted in consequence or his interfering in the affairs of Brittany, procured the grant of • the fortieth part of all their moveables from the bishops, abbots, priors, secular clergy, and laity, to be extorted in the condition in which they then were at the time of harvest which was then at hand, about the day of the feast of Saint Michael; and he did this by the advice of Stephen de Seagrave. About the same time, Hubert, knowing the violence of the king's anger, would not venture to appear in his presence on the day which had been appointed him. Then the king, beiug angry;