and Peter was too honest to pay anything at all: this may have been given to him as a solatium. He writes to Longchamp, the new chancellor, to implore his aid against the sheriff of Stafford, who was contravening the ancient privileges of the church of Wolverhampton.[1] He had a sincere respect for Longchamp, and on his fall he wrote a letter of fierce remonstrance, plainly intended as a manifesto, to Hugh de Nonant, bishop of Coventry, whom he styles 'once my lord and friend'.[2]
It was probably between March and October of the year 1191 that Peter of Blois had a long and severe illness. At the close of it he wrote a letter of apology to the prior and monks of Canterbury for the part which he had taken against them (Ep. 233). He throws the whole blame on the late king: 'He constrained and compelled me to act for the archbishop against you, yea, against God and my own self; and to toil for eight months in the Roman court at my own charges and in continual peril of my life. But the Lord hath chastened me; and. as for eight months I stood against you, so for eight months He has afflicted me with a very grievous sickness.' The abject terms in which he writes may be due to his physical breakdown, but in any case he might well wish to make peace. His own bishop Reginald, who had constantly taken the side of the monks, was about this time elected to fill Baldwin's place, and it seemed as if the controversy had thus found a natural end. As it fell out, however, Reginald died within a month of his election to Canterbury, and the trouble was soon to break out afresh.
Peter was still on his bed of sickness when the news of Longchamp's fall reached him. He wrote him a letter of condolence, in which he reminded him that before leaving England he had personally warned him in advance of the malice of his enemies (Ep. 87). We learn from this letter that on his recovery Peter had gone to the queen-mother. He probably spent Christmas with her in Normandy, and returned with her to England in February 1192. We find him in her service when the tidings of K. Richard's capture arrived. A letter which she writes from London about the fortifications of Canterbury
- ↑ Ep. 108, written after 5 June 1190, when W. de Longchamp was made legate. Peter complains of 'tyrannidem vicecomitis de Staffort'. Dr. Savage, the dean of Lichfield, writes (The Chapter in the Twelfth Century, p. 18): 'The bishop [Hugh de Nonant] also secured the shrievalty of three counties—Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire—for a fine of 200 marks. These he worked by deputy sheriffs; among them his brother Robert de Nonant, who was undersheriff of Staffordshire in 1191-2': see the Pipe Rolls for the years 1190-2. Bp Hugh was called to account for his actions as sheriff, 31 March 1194 (see R. de Hovedean, iii. 241).
- ↑ Ep. 89: c. Oct. 1191.
