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In February, 1311, he died, and Gloucester abandoned the
campaign to take up the regency. The death of the last of Edward I.'s
lay ministers was followed in March by that of another survivor of the
old generation, Bishop Bek of Durham. The old landmarks were quickly
passing away, and the forces that still made for moderation were
sensibly diminished. Gilbert of Gloucester, alone of the younger
generation, still aspired to the position of a mediator. The most
important result of Lincoln's death was the unmuzzling of his
son-in-law, Thomas of Lancaster. In his own right the lord of the three
earldoms of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby, Thomas then received in
addition his father-in-law's two earldoms of Lincoln and Salisbury. The
enormous estates and innumerable jurisdictions attached to these five
offices gave him a territorial position greater by far than that of any
other English lord. "I do not believe," writes the monk of Malmesbury,
"that any duke or count of the Roman empire could do as much with the
revenues of his estates as the Earl of Lancaster.


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