In 1215, he was one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta of King John. He succeeded to his father's estates (including Framlingham Castle) in 1221.
Contrary to the assertion of Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, there is no evidence for a fourth son called Simon Bigod. A man of that name appears as a witness to one of Earl Hugh's charters (Morris, HBII 2), but as the eighteenth name in a list of twenty, suggesting no close connection to the main branch of the family. He is also named among the knights who surrendered to King John at Framlingham Castle in 1216. He was probably a descendant of Hugh or William Bigod, half-brothers to Earl Roger II Bigod.
Simon is recognized as the third son of Hugh Bigod in Francis Blomefield's "North Erpingham Hundred: Felbrigg", An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 8 (London, 1808), pp. 107–119. British History OnlineProfile, british-history.ac.uk. Accessed 2 June 2019.</ref> He is also recognized by Gary Boyd Roberts in The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States, Vol 1, p. 528.
Hugh Bigod and his wife [Mahelt] are the main characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's To Defy a King. They also appear as secondary characters in novels chronicling their parents such as The Time of Singing (UK: Sphere, 2008) published in the USA as For the King's Favor; The Greatest Knight; and The Scarlet Lion.