[2][a] De Broc held the offices of usher and marshall in the royal household under King Henry II.
[2] During the Becket controversy, which began in October 1163,[3] de Broc supported King Henry II of England and was appointed to oversee the lands and income of the see of Canterbury while Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was in exile[2] after fleeing England in October 1164.
But difficulties dragged on and Becket accused de Broc of stripping the estates of the recent harvest and storing it away from the archbishop's control.
[11] De Broc was part of the party that met Becket at Sandwich on 1 December 1070 when the archbishop returned to England.
The next day the group was accompanied by some clergy sent by the three excommunicated ecclesiastics, but nothing was accomplished by this meeting except further offers from Becket to consider other options.
On 29 December 1170, the five men arrived at Canterbury, where it appears that de Broc was in charge of the soldiers surrounding the cathedral while the other four went inside to negotiate with the archbishop.
[16] In the Revolt of 1173–74 by Henry II's sons against their father, the king gave de Broc custody of Haughley Castle.
On 13 October 1173, Robert de Beaumont, the Earl of Leicester, captured the castle for the rebels and burned it to the ground.
His funeral monument holds an epitaph which is : "Hic expecto resurectioni mortuorum" (Here, I am waiting for the resurrection of the deads)[1] (pages 125-126).