Robert de Stretton

Robert de Stretton (died 1385) was Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield following the death of Roger Northburgh in 1358. A client of Edward, the Black Prince, he became a "notorious figure" because it was alleged that he was illiterate, although this is now largely discounted as unlikely, as he was a relatively efficient administrator.

Robert de Stretton is presumed to have been born at Great Stretton or Stretton Magna in Leicestershire, a village that has since disappeared, although neighbouring Little Stretton survives. His parents were Robert Eyryk and his wife Johanna. He is thought to have had three siblings: Sir William Eyryk, the heir to the family estates, John and Adelina. Fletcher considered that Sir William was the ancestor of a prominent Leicestershire landowning family, the Heyricks of Houghton on the Hill, but this is far from certain. Families called Heyrick, and later Herrick, were to influential in Leicester and Leicestershire for centuries. When Robert's chantry at Stretton was dissolved in the 16th century, the dissolution certificate referred to him as "Robert Heyrick, sometym byshoppe of Chester" and it seems clear that he was frequently known by this name, although "de Stretton" was his more usual surname. The name is derived from the Danish personal name Eirik and suggests Norse origins. It was found in a number of Leicestershire villages.

The relationship between the Eyryk family and Great Stretton is problematic. Fletcher claimed that the Eyryk family were "undoubtedly seated at Stretton Magna at an early date, and held land there under Leicester Abbey," providing a family tree, based on research by Nichols, that pushed the connection back to the reign of Henry III (1216-1272), while the recent Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article asserts that Robert himself held the manor in the 1370s. The relevant Victoria County History volumes provides only limited corroboration, showing the pattern of land holding at Great Stretton as complicated: there was a high degree of subinfeudation by the late 13th century. and in the 14th century, the manor itself was held by the Zouche family of Haryngworth from the Ferrers of Groby. The Heyrick family were substantial free tenants and the most important residents, but not apparently lords of the manor. Their presence in the village was first attested in 1274, with one Richard Heirick, a cleric. In 1327 and 1332 they paid about a third of the village's total tax bill, giving an indication of their relative importance. Bishop Robert inherited some of the family's land at Great Stretton in later life.

The existence of the clerk Richard Heirick in the late 13th century makes clear that the Eyryks, like many other lower landed gentry families, were accustomed to some of their young men seeking ordination. However, nothing is known of how Robert de Stretton adopted this career path or of his education and clerical formation. Fletcher, in his earlier biography, asserted that he "became Doctor of Laws, one of the auditors of the Rota in the Court of Rome and Chaplain to Edward the Black Prince" - the academic claim derived from Henry Wharton's Anglia Sacra. He had moderated the certainty of his claims for Stretton's academic achievements by the time he wrote his Dictionary of National Biography article. The recent Oxford edition discounts them as mistaken, allowing only that he was sometimes addressed as "Master" but no specific degree named. However, there is no doubt that he did become a client of Edward, the Prince of Wales, probably in the early 1340s. By March 1347 he was serving the prince as almoner – an important but essentially administrative office which might have been occupied by a deacon or one in minor orders. By May 1349, however, he was the prince's confessor – a function for which ordination to the priesthood was prerequisite.

Royal service brought Stretton numerous lucrative preferments. By 1343 he was already rector of Wigston, close to his home village, and in that year became a canon of Chichester Cathedral, being appointed to the prebend of Waltham. On 25 January 1344 the prince had him appointed precentor of St Asaph Cathedral, a post to which was attached the prebend of Faenol Another Welsh appointment came on 28 March 1347 with a canonry at Llandaff Cathedral and the prebend of Caerau At some time he also became a canon of Lincoln Cathedral with the prebend Sanctae Crucis (of Holy Cross) at Spaldwick. He also received appointments at Gnosall in Staffordshire, in London and at Salisbury. By 1354 he was rector of Llanbadarn Fawr, Ceredigion, in the Diocese of St David's.

Fletcher thought that he was already also a canon at Lichfield before he became bishop, specifying collation to the prebend of Pipa Parva in 1358. Swanson thinks this mistaken, despite the testimony of a papal bull of 1360. Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae records the royal grant of Pipa Parva to M. Robert de Stretton on 29 November 1358 but this was only the day before Stretton was elected bishop. This Master Robert de Stretton was appointed to positions in the diocese on several occasions while Stretton was bishop: after serving as Archdeacon of Derby from 1361 to 1369, he exchanged the post for the Archdeaconry of Coventry, where he served until 1408. As he cannot have been the bishop, he was a namesake and probably a relative.

Stretton was also engaged in political matters. In 1347 he was one of the envoys who sought unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage between the Black Prince and a daughter of Afonso I of Portugal. From 1350 he was employed as a king's clerk. In 1355 the French Pope Innocent VI, resident at Avignon, tried to bring about a truce in the Hundred Years' War. Two nuncios were sent to promote talks between the James of Bourbon, the Constable of France and Edward III of England, with a view to averting hostilities in Gascony, where the Black Prince had been conducting a hugely destructive chevauchée. Robert de Stretton, addressed as canon of Lincoln, was one of an English deputation nominated by the Pope to support the nuncios in their mission. However, the peace effort came to nothing and de Stretton's master followed up his campaign with another devastating raid the following year, which led to the Battle of Poitiers.

The process by which Robert de Stretton became Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield was, and remains, controversial. He was canonically elected to the see, with the support of the Black Prince, on 30 November 1358. Although royal assent was granted on 21 January 1359, his consecration was delayed almost 22 months — until 27 September 1360. G. R. Owst, pioneering historian of preaching in the period, fell upon Stretton's case with glee, as confirming some of the most damning allegations about clerical incompetence made by contemporary preachers: