Thomas Merke

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Thomas Merke
Bishop of Carlisle
Appointedbefore 23 April 1397
Term ended1409
PredecessorRobert Reed
SuccessorWilliam Strickland
Orders
Consecration23 April 1397
Personal details
Died1409
DenominationCatholic

Thomas Merke (or Merks; died 1409) was an English priest and Bishop of Carlisle from 1397 to 1400.

Educated at

ambassador to various German princes in 1397, was one of the commissioners who negotiated the dowry of Isabella of Valois
in 1398, and accompanied the king to Ireland in 1399.

Merke supported Richard against the usurper

auxiliary Bishop and as the acting bishop of the Diocese of Winchester several times. He was one of the Bishops who sided against Pope Gregory XII at Lucca in 1408, during the Great Schism of the West.[citation needed] He died in 1409.[1]

Merke's role in supporting the king is represented in Samuel Daniel's poem The Civil Wars Between the Houses of Lancaster and York and in William Shakespeare's play Richard II.[2][3]

Citations

  1. ^ a b Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 235
  2. ^ Daniel 1958, pp. 17–18
  3. ^ Shakespeare 2002, pp. 387–391

References

  • Daniel, Samuel (1958). Michel, Laurence (ed.). The Civil Wars. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. .
  • Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. .
  • Shakespeare, William (2002). Forker, Charles R. (ed.). King Richard II. London: Thompson Learning. .
Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Bishop of Carlisle
1397–1400
Succeeded by