**** M. Paris, p. 259, 260, 261, 266. Chron. T. Wykes, p.
41, 47 Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221. M. West, p. 291,
301.

The man who succeeded him in the government of the king and kingdom, was
Peter, bishop of Winchester, a Poictevin by birth, who had been raised
by the late king, and who was no less distinguished by his arbitrary
principles and violent conduct, than by his courage and abilities. This
prelate had been left by King John justiciary and regent of the kingdom
during an expedition which that prince made into France; and his illegal
administration was one chief cause of that great combination among the
barons, which finally extorted from the crown the charter of liberties,
and laid the foundation of the English constitution. Henry, though
incapable, from his character, of pursuing the same violent maxims which
had governed his father, had imbibed the same arbitrary principles;
and in prosecution of Peter's advice, he invited over a great number of
Poictevins and other foreigners, who, he believed, could more safely be
trusted than the English, and who seemed useful to counterbalance the
great and independent power of the nobility.[*] Every office and command
was bestowed on these strangers; they exhausted the revenues of the
crown, already too much impoverished;[**] they invaded the rights of the
people; and their insolence, still more provoking than their power, drew
on them the hatred and envy of all orders of men in the kingdom.[***]

{1233.} The barons formed a combination against this odious ministry,
and withdrew from parliament, on pretence of the danger to which
they were exposed from the machinations of the Poictevins. When again
summoned to attend, they gave for answer, that the king should dismiss
his foreigners, otherwise they would drive both him and them out of
the kingdom, and put the crown on another head, more worthy to wear it:
[****] such was the style they used to their sovereign. They at
last came to parliament, but so well attended, that they seemed in a
condition to prescribe laws to the king and ministry.

* M. Paris, p. 263

** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151.

*** M. Paris, p. 258

**** M. Paris, p 265.

Peter des Roches, however, had in the interval found means of sowing
dissension among them, and of bringing over to his party the earl of
Cornwall, as well as the earls of Lincoln and Chester. The confederates
were disconcerted in their measures: