the mother of the elder Simon, was the sister and heiress of Robert of Beaumont, the last of his line to hold the earldom of Leicester.  After Amice’s death her son used the title and claimed the estates of that earldom.  But these pretensions were but nominal, and since 1215 Randolph of Chester had administered the Leicester lands as if his complete property.  However, Amaury of Montfort, the Count of Toulouse’s eldest son, ceded to his portionless younger brother his claims to the Beaumont inheritance, and in 1230 Simon went to England to push his fortunes.  Young, brilliant, ambitious and attractive, he not only easily won the favour of the king, but commended himself so well to Earl Randolph that in 1231 the aged earl was induced to relax his grasp on the Leicester estates.  In 1239 the last formalities of investiture were accomplished.  Amaury renounced his claims, and after that Simon became Earl of Leicester and steward of England.  A year before that he had secured the great marriage that he had long been seeking.  In January, 1238, he was wedded to the king’s own sister, Eleanor, the childless widow of the younger William Marshal.  Simon was for the moment high in the affection of his brother-in-law.  To the English he was simply another of the foreign favourites who turned the king’s heart against his born subjects.

[1] This is well illustrated by Philip de Beaumanoir’s well-known romance, Jean de Dammartin et Blonde d’Oxford (ed. by Suchier, Soc. des anciens Textes francais, and by Le Roux de Lincy, Camden Soc.).

In 1238 Peter des Roches died.  With all his faults the Poitevin was an excellent administrator at Winchester,[1] and left his estates in such a prosperous condition that Henry coveted the succession for the bishop-elect of Valence, though William already had the prospect of the prince-bishopric of liege.  But the monks of St. Swithun’s refused to obey the royal order, and Henry sought to obtain his object from the pope.  Gregory gave William both Liege and Winchester, but in 1239 death ended his restless plans.  William’s death left more room for his kinsfolk and followers.  His clerk, Peter of Aigueblanche, returned to the land of promise, and in 1240 secured his consecration as Bishop of Hereford.  William’s brother, Peter of Savoy, lord of Romont and Faucigny, was invited to England in the same year.  In 1241 he was invested with the earldom of Richmond, which a final breach with Peter of Brittany had left in the king’s hands.  Peter, the ablest member of his house, thus became its chief representative in England.[2]

    [1] See H. Hall, Pipe Roll of the Bishop of Winchester,
    1207-8.

    [2] For Peter see Wurstemberger, Peter II., Graf von Savoyen
    (1856).