2 FULCO de BREANTEE. Oxf.]
This Fulco, or Falkerius, or Falkesius de Breantee, or Breantel, or Brent, (so many seve∣ral ways is he written,) was for the first six years of this King High-Sheriffe of Ox∣ford, Cambridge, Huntington, Bedford, Buckingham, and Northampton shires, (Counties continued together) as by perusing the Catalogues will appear. What this Vir tot locorum, Man of so many places was, will be cleared in * 1.1 Middlesex, the place of his Nativity.
56 ROG. EPIS. COVENT. & LICH.]
That Bishops in this age were Sheriffs of Counties in their own Dioceses, it was usuall and obvious. But Bark-shire lying in the Diocess of Sarum, Oxfordshire of Lincolne, that the far distant Bishop of Coventry and Lich. should be their Sheriffe, may seem ex∣traordinary and irregular.
This first put us on the inquiry who this Roger should be, and on search we found him surnamed De Molend, aliàs Longespe, who was * 1.2 Nephew unto King Henry the third, though how the kindred came in I can not discover. No wonder then if his royal re∣lation promoted him to this place, contrary to the common course; the King in his own great age, and absence of his Son Prince Edward in Palestine, desiring to place his Con∣fidents in offices of so high trust.