Politcs Finance Church During the Reign of Edward II

by Mark Buck

Walter Stapeldon, fifteenth bishop of Exeter, was the founder of Exeter College, Oxford, and the greatest of Edward II's treasurers of the Exchequer. As Edward's regime crumbled in 1326, he paid the price of his master's rapacious policies, of which he was the chief instrument. This study shows how the Plantagenet revolution in government, the most massive overhaul of the Exchequer ever undertaken in medieval England, was shaped with a clear financial purpose. On the basis of his extensive research in the Exchequer archives, Dr Buck reveals for the first time the extent and severity of the government's action on the levying of debts to the Crown, which, although initiated earlier, was exacerbated in the early 1320s when parliament and the clergy were refusing the king supply. Placing the policies of Stapeldon's treasurership in their political and parliamentary context, he argues that the Exchequer was Edward's most powerful weapon against the aristocratic opposition and in the process reassesses the accepted interpretation of these years of turmoil.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 1983

About the author

Mark Buck is Chief Executive Officer of GSI, a UK-based financial planning, wealth management and estate and tax planning group, and Chief Operating Officer of Mitchell & Mitchell Asset Management. Over more than two decades, he has led businesses through growth, acquisitions, regulatory change and the everyday uncertainty that comes with responsibility.

He holds an MBA and a degree in Classics, and is a member of CFA Institute and CFA Society United Kingdom.

His writing explores leadership, organisational culture and the question that sits at the centre of much of his work: what allows capability to survive the departure of the people who first created it? Rather than offering formulas or quick fixes, he is interested in the realities of leadership as it is actually experienced—messy, unfinished and deeply human.

Leadership Without Arrival is his first book and the first title published by Roebuck Publishing. It is the first in a series of books exploring leadership, organisations and institutional capability.

When he is not leading businesses or writing, he is usually reading history, philosophy or business, or being supervised by a Labrador who remains unconvinced by any of it.