Editing Roger of Howden (section)

==Courtier and diplomat==
Most of Roger's public career was taken up in service to the Angevin kings of England. A good deal of his activity on behalf of [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] can be reconstructed from his ''Gesta Henrici Secundi'' (Deeds of Henry II), which originated as a journal of his time in the royal court. From this can be found evidence that he accompanied the king's embassy to Pope [[Pope Alexander III|Alexander]] in 1171, and in 1174 was sent from [[France]] on a secret mission to the [[lords of Galloway]]. In 1175 he appears as a negotiator between the king and a number of English religious houses.{{sfn|Davis|1911|p=455}} In 1180 and 1182–3 he was again at Rome as an English agent in the matter of the disputed election to the see of [[Archbishop of St Andrews|St Andrews]] in Scotland. Roger seems from these missions to have acquired a reputation as a reliable agent in ecclesiastical affairs and in Scotland and the borders in particular. He was employed on at least one occasion as a royal justice, serving in 1189 on the assize of the forests in the shires of Yorkshire, [[Cumberland]] and [[Northumberland]].<ref>J. Gillingham, 'Writing the Biography of Roger of Howden' in, ''Writing Medieval Biography: Essays in Honour of Frank Barlow'', ed. D. Bates, J. Crick and S. Hamilton (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006) 211-16.</ref> After Henry II's death in 1189 Roger continued in service to his successor, [[Richard I]]. In 1195 he was once again involved in a mission to Scotland, and by then his prominence had led to his acquisition of a canon's stall in [[Glasgow Cathedral]].<ref>A.A.M. Duncan, 'Roger of Howden and Scotland, 1187–1201' in, ''Church, Chronicle and Learning in Medieval and Early Renaissance Scotland,'' ed. B. Crawford (Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1999), 139.</ref>