Laud succeeded him as president, but only after a hard patronage struggle reaching high circles at court. The rival candidate, John Rawlinson, was chaplain to Lord Ellesmere, who was both chancellor of the university and Lord Chancellor of England. Laud was chaplain to Richard Neile, who was Clerk of the Closet. Eventually, King James brushed aside irregularities in the election, settling matters in Laud's favour. Laud became Dean of Gloucester in 1616. At Gloucester Cathedral he began ceremonial innovations with the communion table. By local custom, the table stood in the middle of the choir, as was then usual in a parish church, rather than at the east end as was typical of cathedrals. Laud believed he had the king's blessing to renovate and improve the run-down building, but he offended his bishop, Miles Smith. Neile was Laud's consistent patron. Neile sought, but could not obtain, Laud's appointment as Dean of Westminster, a post that John Williams retained. But at the end of 1621, and despite the king's view of Laud as a troublemaker, Laud received the relatively unimportant see as Bishop of St David's. Laud became a confidant of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, at the end of the reign. The Buckingham household employed John Percy (alias Fisher), a Jesuit, as chaplain, and the king wished to counter well-founded rumours that Percy was making Catholic converts there. In a three-day series of private debates with Percy in 1622, Laud was introduced to argue the Protestant case on the final day; pamphlets followed. He then displaced John Preston as religious adviser to the duke, a change that became clear around December 1624. Under Charles I 1625 to 1628 Laud ascended rapidly to a position of influence in the period 1626 to 1628, advancing not alone but with a group of like-minded clerics who obtained bishoprics. In 1626 he was translated from St David's to be Bishop of Bath and Wells and in September that year he took the court position of Dean of the Chapel Royal, vacant by the death of Lancelot Andrewes. A few years later, in 1633, he became Archbishop of Canterbury, when George Abbot died. He immediately changed the Chapel services to privilege prayer over preaching, since King Charles's views were the opposite of his father's. Bishop of London and "Thorough" In July 1628 Laud was translated from Bath and Wells to become Bishop of London,