THOMAS, a celebrated English prelate, was born of obscure parents at Exeter, where, in the early part of his life, he taught a grammar-school. After this he took orders, and was made archdeacon of Exeter; but he resigned that dignity, and became a Cistercian monk in the monastery of Ford in Devonshire, of which, in a few years, he was made abbot. In the year 1180 he was consecrated bishop of Worcester. In 1184 he was promoted to the see of Canterbury by Pope Lucius III., and by his successor Urban III. was appointed legate for that diocese. He laid the foundation of a church and monastery in honour of Thomas à Becket at Hackington, near Canterbury, for secular priests; but being opposed by the monks of Canterbury and the pope, he was obliged to desist. Baldwin then laid the foundation of the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth. In 1190 he crowned King Richard I. at Westminster, and soon after followed that prince to the Holy Land, where he died at the siege of Ptolemais or St Jean d'Acre. Giraldus Cambrensis, who accompanied him in this expedition, says he was of a mild disposition, and practised great abstinence. He wrote various tracts on religious subjects, which were collected and published by Bertrand Tissier in 1662.

the name of nine counts of Flanders, the last of whom ascended the throne of Constantinople in 1204. There were also four kings of Jerusalem of this name, from 1100 to 1186, when the nephew of the last, then a child, was titular king until the capture of the city by Saladin in 1187.

See Crusades.