THEY began to talk together. “How stands your conscience?” asked the bishop; “you are my parishioner, and I must give an answer for it.”*
“My conscience is fairly easy,” answered Richard, “but I admit it is ruffled with anger against those who are hostile to my sovereignty.”
“Ha!” said Hugh, “is that all? And yet I hear daily complaints of the poor oppressed, the innocent afflicted, and the land crushed with exactions. Nor is that everything. I hear that you have not kept your marriage vows.”* The king started up, angry and aghast; and Hugh took his leave.
“If all the bishops in my realm were like that man,” said Richard, when he left, “kings and princes would be powerless against them.”* Hugh got the nickname of Hammer-king because he had dealt both Henry and Richard some hard knocks.
Richard was born in Oxford, which at that time was under the care of the Diocese of Lincoln. In that sense, he was Hugh’s pastoral responsibility.
Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre in Portgal, on May 12th, 1191, at Limassol in Cyprus. The couple had no children, but Richard is known to have fathered at least one illegitimate child, Philip of Cognac. Roger of Hoveden tells us that on the Sunday after Easter, 1195, Richard fell ill. “Calling before him religious men, he was not ashamed to confess the guiltiness of his life, and, after receiving absolution, took back his wife, whom for a long time he had not known: and, putting away all illicit intercourse, he remained constant to his wife, and they two became one flesh, and the Lord gave him health both of body and of soul.”
The episode recalls the time when St Basil (330-379) was summoned to explain why he did not accept the Arian heresy, at that time backed by the court in Constantinople and its tame clergy. ‘No one has ever bandied words with me like this!’ complained the Prefect. ‘In that case,’ Basil replied drily, ‘you can’t have met any bishops, because bishops always bandy words like that when they are contending for such matters.’ See Gregory Nazianzen’s Oration XLIII §50. And for another tussle between bishop and emperor, see A Battle of Wills.