William of Ely was an English churchman and the fifth
Lord High Treasurer
The post of Lord High Treasurer or Lord Treasurer was an English government position and has been a British government position since the Acts of Union of 1707. A holder of the post would be the third-highest-ranked Great Officer of State in ...
of
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. He was a relative of
Richard FitzNeal
Richard FitzNeal ( c. 1130 – 10 September 1198) was a churchman and bureaucrat in the service of Henry II of England.
Life
In 1158 or 1159 Nigel, Bishop of Ely paid Henry II to appoint his natural son, Richard FitzNeal, as the king's trea ...
and supposed descendant of
Nigel, Bishop of Ely, both previous Lord High Treasurers. He was appointed a
Canon of St. Paul's just before being made Lord High Treasurer in 1196. He added the position of
Archdeacon of Cleveland
The Archdeacon of Cleveland is a senior ecclesiastical officer of an archdeaconry, or subdivision, of the Church of England Diocese of York, diocese and Province of York, province of York Minster, York. The Archdeaconry of Cleveland stretches west ...
in 1201 and Prebendary of
Leighton Buzzard
Leighton Buzzard ( ) is a market town in Bedfordshire, England, in the southwest of the county and close to the Buckinghamshire border. It lies between Aylesbury, Tring, Luton/Dunstable and Milton Keynes, near the Chiltern Hills. It is northwes ...
in 1207.
A story about William of Ely tells of his attempted escape from England during a time when he had fallen from favour with the King; he was disguised as a commoner but was stopped when he proved unable to respond to a simple question posed to him in English (illustrating the
dominance of the French language among nobles and clergymen at the time).
See also
*
List of Lord High Treasurers
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
References
Year of birth unknown
12th-century English Roman Catholic priests
13th-century deaths
13th-century English Roman Catholic priests
Archdeacons of Cleveland
Lord High Treasurers of England
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