text: Richard's episcopate was marked by the favour which he showed to the Dominicans, a house of this order at Orléans having sheltered him during his stay in France, and by his earnestness in preaching a crusade.  After dedicating St Edmund's Chapel at Dover, he died aged 56 at the Maison Dieu, Dover at midnight on 3 April 1253, where the Pope had ordered him to preach a crusade. His internal organs were removed and placed in that chapel's altar. Richard's body was then carried to Chichester and buried, according to his wishes, in the chapel on the north side of the nave, dedicated to his patron St. Edmund. His remains were translated to a new shrine in 1276.
  Episcopal statutes
  After the full rights of the see and its revenues were returned to him in 1246, the new bishop showed much eagerness to reform the manners and morals of his clergy, and also to introduce greater order and reverence into the services of the Church.
  Richard overruled Henry on several occasions.  Richard defrocked a priest who had seduced a nun out of her convent, turning aside a petition from the king in the priest's favour.
  Richard was militant in protecting the clergy from abuse. When townsmen of Lewes violated the right of sanctuary by seizing a criminal in church and lynching him, Richard made them exhume the body and give it a proper burial in consecrated ground. He also imposed severe penance on knights who attacked priests.