William Fitzstephen

Fitzstephen became a subdeacon with responsibility for perusing letters and petitions involving the diocese.

[3] Fitzstephen appeared with Becket at the council at Northampton Castle, where the archbishop was disgraced.

[4] When Becket was then forced into exile, after refusing to sign the Constitutions of Clarendon, King Henry II accepted a petition, in verse, from Fitzstephen and pardoned him from the banishment meted upon his master.

Fitzstephen wrote a biography of Becket, in which he gives a clear description of the differences between the archbishop and the King.

The three editions of this work demonstrate a continuing familiarity with the life of the city, and for this reason he is not thought to be the same William Fitzstephen whom Henry appointed to be Sheriff of Gloucester and itinerant justice in 1171.