[1] Born in May 1512, in Hampshire, southern England, Brooks became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1532, took the B.A.
He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford in the years 1547–1555.
[3][4] Widely known as an eloquent preacher, with the deprivation of John Hooper on the accession of Queen Mary, Brooks succeeded him as Bishop of Gloucester by papal provision in 1554 and was consecrated on 1 April.
In 1555, Brooks was one of the papal sub-delegates in the Royal Commission for the trial of the Oxford Martyrs, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley.
If, as the Protestant polemicist John Foxe asserts, Brooks refused to degrade Latimer as well, his position may have been based upon the fact that Latimer had lived for several years as a simple clergyman.