+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.