THE POITEVIN INVASION (1233).
Source.—Roger of Wendover, vol. ii., pp. 565-566. (Bohn's Libraries.)
A.D. 1233.—The seventeenth year of King Henry's reign he held his Court at Christmas at Worcester, where, by the advice of Peter, Bishop of Winchester, as was said, he dismissed all the native officers of the Court from their offices, and appointed foreigners from Poitou in their places. He also dismissed William de Rodune, a knight who carried on the duties of Richard the Grand Marshal at his Court. By the same person's advice the King also dismissed Walter, Bishop of Carlisle, from his office of Treasurer, and then took from him a hundred pounds of silver, and also spitefully deprived him of some trusts, which he the King had by his own charter confirmed to him for life. All his former counsellors, Bishops and Earls, Barons and other nobles, he dismissed abruptly, and put confidence in no one except the aforesaid Bishop of Winchester and his son Peter de Rivaulx; after which he ejected all the castellans throughout all England, and placed the castles under the charge of the said Peter. The Bishop, then, in order to gain the King's favour more completely, associated with himself Stephen de Segrave, a yielding man, and Robert Passelewe, who kept the King's treasury under Peter de Rivaulx; and he entirely ruled the kingdom with the advice and assistance of those men. The King also invited men from Poitou and Brittany, who were poor and covetous after wealth, and about two thousand knights and soldiers came to him equipped with horses and arms, whom he engaged in his service, placing them in charge of the castles in the various parts of the kingdom; these men used their utmost endeavours to oppress the natural English subjects and nobles, calling them traitors, and accusing them of treachery to the King; and he, simple man that he was, believed their lies, and gave them the charge of all the counties and baronies, as also of all the youths of the nobility, both male and female, who were foully degraded by ignoble marriages. The King also entrusted them with the care of his treasury, with the enforcement of the laws of the country and the administration of justice. In short, judgment was entrusted to the unjust, laws to outlaws, the preservation of peace to the quarrelsome, and justice to those who were themselves full of injury, and when the nobles of the kingdom laid complaints before the King of the oppression they endured, the said Bishop interfered and there was no one to grant them justice. The said Peter, too, made accusations against some of the other Bishops of the kingdom, and advised the King to avoid them as open enemies.