Having received some
ecclesiastical preferments, he acted as one of the regents of the kingdom
from the death of Henry III. in November 1272 until August 1274, when the
new king, Edward I., returned from Palestine and made him his chancellor.
In 1275 Burnell was elected bishop of Bath and Wells, and three years later
Edward repeated the attempt which he had made in 1270 to secure the
archbishopric of Canterbury for his favourite. The bishop's second failure
to obtain this dignity was due, doubtless, to his irregular and unclerical
manner of life, a fact which also accounts, in part at least, for the
hostility which existed between his victorious rival, Archbishop Peckham,
and himself. As the chief adviser of Edward I. during the earlier part of
his reign, and moreover as a trained and able lawyer, the bishop took a
prominent part in the legislative acts of the "English Justinian," whose
activity in this direction coincides practically with Burnell's tenure of
the office of chancellor. The bishop also influenced the king's policy with
regard to France, Scotland and Wales; was frequently employed on business
of the highest moment; and was the royal mouthpiece on several important
occasions. In 1283 a council, or, as it is sometimes called, a parliament,
met in his house at Acton Burnell, and he was responsible for the
settlement of the court of chancery in London. In spite of his numerous
engagements, Burnell found time to aggrandize his bishopric, to provide
liberally for his nephews and other kinsmen, and to pursue his cherished
but futile aim of founding a great family. Licentious and avaricious, he
amassed great wealth; and when he died on the 25th of October 1292 he left
numerous estates in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Kent, Surrey and
elsewhere. He was, however, genial and kind-hearted, a great lawyer and a
faithful minister.

See R.W. Eyton, _Antiquities of Shropshire_ (London, 1854-1860); and E.
Foss, _The Judges of England_, vol. iii. (London, 1848-1864).

BURNES, SIR ALEXANDER (1805-1841), British traveller and explorer, was born
at Montrose, Scotland, in 1805. While serving in India, in the army of the
East India Company, which he had joined in his seventeenth year, he made
himself acquainted with Hindustani and Persian, and thus obtained an
appointment as interpreter at Surat in 1822. Transferred to Cutch in 1826
as assistant to the political agent, he turned his attention more
particularly to the hi