Derlington became a Dominican friar, and it has been inferred that he studied at
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
at the Dominican priory of St Jacques, because his name is mentioned as working on the second edition (''Concordantiæ Magnæ'', about 1250) of Hugues de St Cher's Latin concordance. In 1256 he was made a member of Henry III's council, and taken into the king's confidence, also at some point becoming Henry's
confessor
Confessor is a title used within Christianity in several ways.
Confessor of the Faith
Its oldest use is to indicate a saint who has suffered persecution and torture for the faith but not to the point of death.
In 1256 Derlington persuaded the king to release a converted Jew of
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
, imprisoned on suspicion of complicity in the murder of a child. In 1258 he helped draw up the
Provisions of Oxford
The Provisions of Oxford were constitutional reforms developed during the Oxford Parliament of 1258 to resolve a dispute between King Henry III of England and his barons. The reforms were designed to ensure the king adhered to the rule of law and ...
, as one of the king's nominees; in 1263 he was present at the drawing up of the instrument by which Henry III agreed to submit the questions arising from the provisions of Oxford to the arbitration of
Louis IX
Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...
Pope Nicholas III
Pope Nicholas III ( la, Nicolaus III; c. 1225 – 22 August 1280), born Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 25 November 1277 to his death on 22 August 1280.
He was a Roman nobleman who ...
, he was appointed a collector of papal revenue in England. The collection of the "tenth" was a long task, but it had hardly begun when Derlington was raised to the see of Dublin, which had been vacant since the death of
Fulk Basset
Fulk Basset (died 4 May 1271) was archbishop of Dublin. He was the elder brother of John de Sandford, who was also Archbishop of Dublin from 1284 to 1290.
He was called Fulk de Sandford and also Fulk Basset, owing to his relationship to the ...
in 1271. The appointment was the Pope's personal choice, made to resolve a confusing situation involving a bitter struggle between two rival nominees,
Fromund Le Brun
Fromund le Brun (died 1283) was a cleric and judge in Ireland who became Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He lost a long battle to become Archbishop of Dublin, due to his notorious pluralism (i.e his holding of multiple benefices). He also clashed b ...
and
William de la Corner
William de la Corner was a medieval Bishop of Salisbury, who fought a long but unsuccessful battle to become Archbishop of Dublin.
Biography
Corner was a papal chaplain and proctor as well as a royal envoy. He successively held the offices of pre ...
. Edward received Derlington's homage and fealty on 27 April 1279, and the next day restored him to his temporalities. He was consecrated on 26 August, at
Waltham Abbey
Waltham Abbey is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest District of Essex, within the metropolitan and urban area of London, England, north-east of Charing Cross. It lies on the Greenwich Meridian, between the River Lea in the west and ...
, by Archbishop
John Peckham
John Peckham (c. 1230 – 8 December 1292) was Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292. He was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Friar Minor about 1250. He studied at the University of Paris under ...
. The contentious collection of the tenth kept Derlington from his see, and the king allowed him to be represented by an attorney in Ireland, and gave him special license to remain in England.
Other troubles also detained Derlington, including a clash with Peckham. In 1283 Edward I seized the collected tenth for the crusade, but then was compelled to give it up. With other business over, Derlington set off for Ireland, but had not gone far from London, when he went down with a mortal sickness. He died on 28 March 1284, and was buried in the choir of
Blackfriars church
Blackfriars is in central London, specifically the south-west corner of the City of London.
Blackfriars Priory
The name is first visible today in records of 1317 in many orthographies. Friar evolved from la, frater as french: frère has, mea ...