 After Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, he began to defend ecclesiastical liberty against Henry’s encroachments, partly in response to which Becket tasked John with composing (in early 1163) a hagiography of Anselm—a prior Canterbury archbishop who’d wrestled with overreaching English monarchs—in support of formal canonization. As the conflict between Becket and Henry deepened, John backed the church’s cause against the English crown, albeit somewhat reluctantly. John consequently spent much of the 1160s in exile, either in France or at the papal court, lobbying on behalf of Becket and against Henry and the English bishops who backed the king. Most of the copious volume of letters contained in John’s second letter collection date from and form important testimony to this period. Following Becket’s murder in December 1170, an event at which John was a bystander, he served the English church in numerous capacities during the early 1170s. Importantly, John wrote one of the earliest hagiographies of Becket, used in support of an initial canonization effort. John was consecrated Bishop of Chartres in 1176 (a post in which he dedicated himself to promoting the cult of Becket). He died there in 1180 and is buried in the nearby abbey church of Notre-Dame-de-Josaphat.