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.
The family of Retz had military traditions, but it had also much church influence, and, despite the very unclerical leanings of the future cardinal, which were not corrected by the teachings of his tutor St Vincent de Paul, the intentions of his family never varied respecting him.
This war is described at great length, the chief hero of it being the monk, Friar John, a very unclerical cleric, in whom Rabelais greatly delights.
The king made one of her uncles, Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterburyit was three years before he deigned to come over to take up the post, and then he was discovered to be illiterate and unclerical in his habits, an unworthy successor for Langton and Edmund of Abingdon, the great primates who went before him.