=Henry of Anjou= (1128-1133), where he was Abbot, was a kinsman of the King.  He had numerous preferments abroad; and after five years here was forced to resign and to betake himself to Anjou.

=Martin de Vecti= (1133-1155), had been Prior of S. Neots.  Gunton considers he came originally from the Isle of Wight, Vectis; Dean Patrick thinks he derived his name from Bec, in Normandy.  He was a great builder, and was very industrious in repairing the abbey, and especially the church.

=William of Waterville= (1155-1175), was chaplain to King Henry II.  He devoted himself to the building of the church, and the portion attributed to him has been indicated in a previous chapter.  He was also very attentive to the management of the estates of the monastery, and to acquiring new ones; but his business capacity seems to have brought him into some disrepute and to have raised some enemies, who accused him to the King; and by the King’s order he was deposed in the Chapter-house, as Dean Patrick relates[32] “before a multitude of abbots and monks; being neither convicted of any crime, nor confessing any, but privily accused to the Archbishop by some monks.”  It is recorded that he appealed to the Pope against the sentence of deprivation, but without success.

=Benedict= (1177-1193), was Prior of Canterbury; and, towards the end of his life, Keeper of the Great Seal.  He had a heavy task at the beginning of his rule in restoring discipline, which had become lax, and in reforming many evil customs that had crept into the house.  He was an author, and produced a work on the career of S. Thomas of Canterbury, whose murder had taken place only seven years before Benedict came to Peterborough.  He gave many ornaments and vestments to the church, and brought several relics; and in particular some of Thomas a Becket (and those we can certainly believe were more authentic than most relics), among which are mentioned his shirt and surplice, a great quantity of his blood in two crystal vessels, and two altars of the stone on which he fell when he was murdered.  He was, as might be expected, very zealous in completing the chapel at the monastery gate which his predecessor had begun to raise in honour of the martyred Archbishop.  Dean Stanley[33] speaks of Benedict’s acquisition of the relics as “one of two memorable acts of plunder ... curiously illustrative of the prevalent passion for such objects.”  He says Benedict was probably the most distinguished monk of Christ Church, and after his appointment to Peterborough, “finding that great establishment almost entirely destitute of relics, he returned to his own cathedral, and carried off with him the flagstones immediately surrounding the sacred spot, with which he formed two altars in the conventual church of his new appointment, besides two vases of blood and part of Becket’s clothing.”  Benedict, though a member of the house and probably within the precincts, was not actually present at the Archbishop’s murder.  Besides his building operations (he built nearly all the nave of the church) he was very attentive to the landed property of the house, successfully recovering some estates which had been alienated.