6 - DECLINE AND DISGRACE 1219–1227

Summary

Des Roches' alien connections, his taking of ransoms, his high-handed attitude in negotiations with France, his suspicious activities at the Exchequer in respect to Jewish debt and his outbursts at Caversham in April 1219, had already given cause for concern both in the country at large and in the mind of the legate Pandulph. Nonetheless, the bishop commanded considerable influence in the highest circles of both church and state. From 1217 onwards, he had served as virtual vice-regent of Hampshire and he was supported by the massive financial resources of the see of Winchester. It would prove extremely difficult and even dangerous to dislodge him from his position within the regime. And yet the very power and wealth that des Roches commanded made him vulnerable to accusations of self-interest and increasingly isolated him from the wider concerns which motivated Pandulph and the king's council. Between 1219 and 1221, the legate was preoccupied with the recovery of the crown's resources usurped by local magnates. Superficially at least, des Roches co-operated in attempts to bring local officers to heel. He was active, for example, in the removal of Philip of Oldcotes from the north. In 1220, he was consulted over the regime's attempt to clip the wings of the Justiciar in Ireland Geoffrey de Marsh, the Poitevin Hugh de Vivonne and the king's cousin Henry fitz Count, who had threatened to establish a virtual palatinate in Cornwall. As a central figure at the Exchequer he was involved in re-channelling the crown's finances through the proper offices of account, in auditing the tangled web of accounts for the war years and in enforcing scutage and other taxes.