Before his consecration as archbishop on April 2, 1234, Edmund had already joined with his suffragans on February 2 in upholding the good fame of the marshal and in warning the king of the disastrous results of preferring the counsels of the Poitevins to those of his natural-born subjects.  A week after his consecration Edmund succeeded in carrying out a radical change in the administration.  On April 9 he declared that unless Henry drove away the Poitevins, he would forthwith pronounce him excommunicate.  Yielding at once, Henry sent the Bishop of Winchester back to his diocese, and deprived Peter of Rivaux of all his offices.  The followers of the two Peters shared their fate, and Henry, despatching Edmund to Wales to make peace with Llewelyn and the marshal, hurried to Gloucester in order to meet the archbishop on his return.  His good resolutions were further strengthened by the news of Earl Richard’s death.  On arriving at Gloucester he held a council in which the ruin of the Poitevins was completed.  A truce, negotiated by the archbishop with Llewelyn, was ratified.  The partisans of the marshal were pardoned, even Richard Siward being forgiven his long career of plunder.  Gilbert Marshal, the next brother of the childless Earl Richard, was invested with his earldom and office, and Henry himself dubbed him a knight.  Hubert de Burgh was included in the comprehensive pardon.  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.  The king’s worst indignation was reserved for Peter of Rivaux.  Peter protested that his orders entitled him to immunity from arrest, but it was found that he wore a mail shirt under his clerical garments, and, without a word of reproach from the archbishop, he was immured in a lay prison on the pretext that no true clerk wore armour.  Of the old ministers Ralph Neville alone remained in office.

With Bishop Peter’s fall disappeared the last of the influences that had prevailed during the minority.  The king, who felt his dignity impaired by the Poitevin domination, resolved that henceforward he would submit to no master.  He soon framed a plan of government that thoroughly satisfied his jealous and exacting nature.  Henceforth no magnates, either of Church or State, should stand between him and his subjects.  He would be his own chief minister, holding in his own hands all the strings of policy, and acting through subordinates whose sole duly was to carry out their master’s orders.  Under such a system the justiciarship practically ceased to exist.  The treasurership was held for short periods by royal clerks of no personal distinction.  Even the chancellorship became overshadowed.  Henry quarrelled with Ralph