Stapledon, Walter De
STAPLEDON, WALTER DE (i 261-1326), English bishop, was born at Annery in North Devon on the 1st of February 1261. He became professor of canon law at Oxford and chaplain to Pope Clement V. and in 1307 was chosen bishop of Exeter. He went on errands to France for both Edward I and Edward II., and attended the councils and parliaments of his time. As lord high treasurer of England, an office to which he was appointed in 1320, the bishop was associated in the popular mind with the misdeeds of Edward II., and consequently, after the king fled before the advancing troops of Queen Isabella, he was murdered in London by the mob on the 15th of October 1326. Stapledon is famous as the founder of Exeter College, Oxford, which originated in Stapledon Hall, established in 1314 by the bishop and his elder brother, Sir Richard Stapledon, a judge of the king's bench. He also contributed very liberally to the rebuilding of his cathedral at Exeter.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
