[1][2] In 1241, Walter became clerk to Nicholas Farnham, quondam rector of another of Merton's parishes, Long Ditton, and now promoted to bishop of Durham.

Walter also helped in the complex financial dealing with King Louis IX of France, when he reached London on 30 April.

[5] A month earlier, the Papal Bulls in support of Henry's coup d'état had ensured it was safe for the king to return to the Tower of London.

Now only a cussed Philip Basset, among the barons, remained aloof from the fray, when the King's new ministrations emerged against the Provisions of Oxford.

He was probably not the king's first choice among the nobility, but the sticking point remained the method by which to appoint sheriffs, from 'faithful men and people' in the shires.

Later that month of May 1261, De Merton had helped define Jus regalitatis, a law that prohibited criticism of the King; a flagrant breach of the commitment at Oxford.

The following year, when de Montfort was at the height of his powers, Walter was urged by the bishop of Worcester to accept a form of peace satis competens et honesta.

[7] It is possible that Walter was a member of Richard of Cornwall's deputation sent from Windsor to greet Montfort's army coming east from London and Kent.

But on 16 July, when the king surrendered peace terms, and three days later de Montfort assumed power, Walter also left office.

De Merton's statutes provided for a common corporate life under the rule of a warden but, as vows were to be taken and scholars entering a monastic order forfeited their scholarship, the college was really a place of training for the secular clergy.

They were established on the site of the parish church of St John whose advowson he had obtained in the early 1260s and where he had been buying adjoining houses and halls since 1264.

[10] However, on Edward's return to England, Walter was dismissed as Lord Chancellor on 21 September 1274, in favour of Robert Burnell, who became a strong ally of the Edwardian regime.

On a journey back from Oxford in 1277, while fording the Medway, he fell from his horse; and died two days later on 27 October 1277 from his injuries.

Walter de Merton was described in the Annales monastici as a man of liberality and great worldly learning, ever ready in his assistance to the religious orders.