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But the chief cause of his offending also gives special value to his work; he was a man of strong views and his sympathies and prejudices colour every line he wrote. His standpoint is that of a patriotic Englishman, indignant at the alien invasions, at the misgovernment of the king, the greed of the curialists and the Poitevins, and with a professional bias against the mendicants.
The storming of the Tuilleries, and the imprisonment of Louis, completely destroyed their body as a club; but the energy of each separate member was raised to the highest pitch. The Poitevins no longer met in the Rue Vivienne, but they separated with a determination on the part of each individual royalist to use every effort to replace the King.
Henry was alarmed, and promised to give him an answer in a few weeks. A parliament of the barons was called, and Edmund renewed his remonstrance. The Poitevins were instantly dismissed, the insurgents restored to favor, and ministers appointed who possessed the confidence of the nation. At the age of twenty-nine the King had married Eleanor, the daughter of Raymond, Count of Provence.
"Know this then for certain, that thou shalt either give up thy castles or thy head," replied Earl Simon. The Poitevins saw they were in evil case, and that they were outnumbered at Oxford. So they left the court, and fled all to the Castle of Wolvesham, near Winchester, where their brother, the Bishop Aymer, made common cause with them. The barons acted promptly.
The gallant and cordial assistance which the Vendeans had received from the strangers among whom they were now thrown, had greatly tended to give them new hopes; and the yesterday's victory, which had been gained by the men called La Petite Vendee, over the advanced troops of the republicans, had made the Poitevins peculiarly anxious to exhibit their own prowess to their gallant friends.
John's chance, however, was a desperate one. A fortnight after Easter, 1203, the French King attacked and took Saumur. Moving southward, he was joined by some Poitevins and Bretons, with whose help he captured sundry castles in Aquitaine. Thence he went back to the Norman border, to be welcomed at Alençon by its count, and to lay seige to Conches.
The Poitevins soon found that they could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it, occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in Aymer's castle of Wolvesey.
Siward and Basset harried the lands of the Poitevins, while the marshal made a close alliance with Llewelyn of Wales. The king still had formidable forces on his side. Richard of Cornwall was persuaded by Bishop Peter to take up arms for his brother, and the two new earls, John the Scot of Chester, and John de Lacy of Lincoln, joined the royal forces.
Meanwhile Siward devastated the estates of the Poitevins and of Richard of Cornwall. Afraid to be cut off from his retreat to England the king abandoned Gloucester, where he had kept his melancholy Christmas court, and found a surer refuge in Bishop Peter's cathedral city. Thereupon Gloucestershire suffered the fate of Shropshire.
Indignant that his name and seal should have been used to cover his ex-ministers' treachery to Earl Richard, Henry overwhelmed them with reproaches, and strove by his violence against them to purge himself from complicity in their acts. The Poitevins lurked in sanctuary, fearing for the worst. Segrave forgot his knighthood, resumed the tonsure, and took refuge in a church in Leicester.
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