o favour, recovered a great share of the king's
confidence, but never showed any inclination to reinstate himself in
power and authority [l].
[FN [h] Ypod. Neustriae, p. 464. [i] P. 232. M. West. p. 216,
ascribes this counsel to Peter, Bishop of Winchester. [k] M. Paris,
p. 259. [l] Ibid. p. 259, 260, 261, 266. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 41, 42.
Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 220, 221. M. West. p. 291, 301.]

[MN Bishop of Winchester minister.]
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 foundations 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 [m]. Every office and command was
bestowed on these strangers: they exhausted the revenues of the crown,
already too much impoverished [n]; 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
[o].
[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 263. [n] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 151. [o] M.
Paris, p. 268.]

[MN 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 [p]: 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 l