Guy had been an unlikely candidate for holy orders: widowed and the father of two young women before taking orders, he had been successively a soldier and a lawyer, and in the latter capacity had acted as secretary to Louis IX of France, to whose influence he was chiefly indebted for his elevation to the cardinalate. Upon the death of his wife, he followed his father's example and gave up secular concerns for the Church. His rise in the church was rapid: in 1256, he was Bishop of Le Puy, in 1259, Archbishop of Narbonne and in December 1261, he was the first cardinal created by Pope Urban IV (1261–64), in the see of Sabina. He was the papal legate in England, 1262–64. He was named grand penitentiary in 1263.