referred to
the pope. His holiness decided in Grandisson's favour, and "the dispute
did half break Mepham's heart, and the Pope, siding with the Bishop of
Exeter, did break the other half." So writes Fuller, and the quaint
sentence does not lack authority, for the archbishop died shortly after
the termination of the quarrel.

Grandisson remembered his cathedral in his will. He bequeathed to his
successors his crozier and mitre, and to the diocese 2,000 marks. At his
funeral, in accordance with his instructions, a hundred poor persons
were clothed and money was distributed among the prisoners and the sick.
He remembered, too, the needs of the poorer clergy and the hospitals,
while to Pope Urban and Edward III. he left splendid legacies. His
funeral, as his life, was simple and economical. For his magnificent
presents, his gorgeous works on the structure of his church, were made
possible by his own simple, almost parsimonious manner of living. He was
buried in the chapel of St. Radegunde, but the tomb was destroyed in
Elizabeth's time, and his ashes lie "no man knows where."

Brantyngham, the next bishop, completed the cloisters, the east window
and west front. But, as Canon Freeman has said, "the rest of the works
of this and the following century are little else than petty
restorations; of course in a later and inferior style, and generally to
the detriment of the building." But there is still much in the history
of the church and the see that deserves a passing notice. Under
Brantyngham, the old feud that Grandisson had finished so satisfactorily
to himself, began again. But the victory this time was with the
archbishop. At Topsham, a village not far from the city, the bishop's
servants attacked savagely the archbishop's mandatory. Full of zeal for
the honour, as they conceived it, of their own prelate, they made the
wretched creature eat the archbishop's writ and seal. But the meal of
parchment and wax did not by any means settle the dispute. The bishop's
cause, indeed, was irretrievably damaged, the king was furious, an
appeal to the pope was unsuccessful, and Brantyngham had to make full
submission to the offended primate. Henceforth the archbishop's right of
visitation was not opposed. Had another than Grandisson been bishop in
Mepham's day the dispute would never, probably, have arisen; for the
archbishop was undoubtedly only exercising his rights, such visitations
being according to canon, and of ancient usage.