Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mauclerk, Walter
MAUCLERK, WALTER (d. 1248), bishop of Carlisle, first appears as a royal clerk in 1202, when he was presented to the church of the Trinity at Falaise. Afterwards he also received two parts of Croxton, Lincolnshire, in 1205; Nimeton (probably Nympton), Devonshire, 1207; a moiety of Catfield, Norfolk, in 1212; and on 16 Sept. 1213 Mylor, Cornwall (Cal. Rot. Pat. 14, 49b, 74, 93, 103). In 1205 he appears as bailiff of the county of Lincoln. In June 1210 he was sent on a mission to Ireland, and again in October 1212 was sent over to take charge of the exchequer there (Sweetman, Cal. Documents relating to Ireland, i. 401, 441, 443). In 1215 he was sent to Rome to urge the royal complaints against the barons (Fœdera, i. 120). In 1219 he was a justice itinerant for the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, and Derby, and was employed with the sheriff for the collection of royal dues and in the collection of fines (cf. Shirley, Royal Letters, i. 20, 28, 36). In 1220 he appears as prebend of Woodburgh, Southwell (Le Neve, iii. 488). He was a justice of the forest in 1221, and next year was sheriff of Cumberland and constable of Carlisle.
In August 1223 Mauclerk was elected bishop of Carlisle, but as this had been done without the royal permission assent was withheld till 27 Oct. (Cal. Rot. Claus. i. 560, 573). In Oct. 1224 he was appointed to go on an embassy to Germany, and set out in the following January. His mission was to treat for the king's marriage with a daughter of Leopold of Austria, and with the Archbishop of Cologne. Three letters from Mauclerk reporting on the progress of his embassy have been preserved (Shirley, i. 249–54, 259, 260. These letters have been sometimes confused with a later mission in 1235, but cf. Fœdera, i. 275, orig. edit. and Pauli, Geschichte, iii. 549 n. 2). While at Cologne Mauclerk dedicated a ‘capsa’ in the Church of the Apostles there. In January 1227 Mauclerk was sent on an embassy to the court of Brittany to negotiate a marriage for Henry. This mission was concerned with the troubles in France consequent on the minority of Louis IX. The moment seemed advantageous for pressing the English king's claims to his ancestral possessions, but the mission failed of its object, because the French nobles had in the meantime made terms with the regent Blanche (Matt. Paris, iii. 123; Ann. Mon. iii. 203; iv. 420). Mauclerk was back in England by Easter. He seems to have been treasurer before 27 May 1227, when he witnesses a charter in this capacity (cf. Giraldus Cambrensis vii. 232–4). Foss, however, states that he was not made treasurer till July 1232. Early in 1233 he was expelled from his office through the influence of Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, and fined 100l. Mauclerk determined to appeal to the pope, and in October was on his way to leave England when he was violently stopped at Dover; on an appeal to the king by the other bishops he was released, and allowed to go to Flanders. The ‘Chronicle of Lanercost’ alleges that this voluntary exile was on account of the injuries done to his church, and that for the same cause Carlisle was under interdict on 27 Nov. 1233, the first Sunday in Advent. Mauclerk was pardoned at the intercession of Archbishop Edmund, and soon recovered the royal favour. Stephen de Segrave [q. v.] endeavoured, on his fall in 1234, to excuse himself under the plea that Mauclerk, as the higher authority, was really responsible. In 1235 Mauclerk was sent to negotiate a marriage for the king with the daughter of Simon, count of Ponthieu, but without success, and in April of the same year was engaged on a mission to the Emperor Frederick (Shirley, i. 469). In 1236 he witnessed the confirmation of the charters. In 1239 he was one of the sponsors for the king's son Edward. Mauclerk was also present at the meeting of the bishops on the state of the churches in 1241. He was one of the councillors during Henry's absence in France in 1243, and governor of the kingdom while Henry was in Wales in 1245, on which account he was excused from attendance at the council of Lyons. In 1248 he resigned his bishopric and became a Dominican at Oxford 29 June (Ann. Mon. iii. 170, but Wykes, iv. 94, gives the date as 24 June). He died on 28 Oct. following. The writer of the ‘Flores Historiarum’ gives a not too favourable character of Mauclerk. He says that the bishop had resigned his see in his old age out of a feeling that he had owed it rather to royal favour than to his learning and character. ‘This is he whom fortune ofttimes raised up only to dash down; who imprudently concerned himself with the royal policy, that he had neither the power nor will to carry out; who negotiated unsuitable alliances for the king in Scotland and Ponthieu.’ He further alleges, with monkish jealousy, that it was Mauclerk who obtained for the Dominicans, perhaps by bribery, the unheard-of privilege that no friar might legitimately leave that order for another. Mauclerk is, however, said to have made a good end, thus hoping to avert the sinister omen of his surname. Mauclerk had a brother, R., prior of Reading, whom John wanted to make abbot of St. Albans in 1215 (Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 140). Two nephews of his are also mentioned, Arnhale (Shirley, i. 68) and Ralph, who in 1231 was made prior of Carlisle (Chron. Lanercost, p. 41).
[Matthew Paris; Annales Monastici; Shirley's Royal and Historical Letters; Flores Historiarum, ii. 350–1 (all these in the Rolls Ser.); Chron. Lanercost (Bannatyne Club); Foss's Judges of England, ii. 404–6; Scriptt. Ord. Prædicatorum, i. 120–1; Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 232, 458.]