Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/64

 against him, and feared that Peter might create in Frederick's mind hostility to his present counsellors (Royal Letters, i. 467). The papal expedition proved successful. Peter and Raymond VII of Toulouse defeated the Romans at Viterbo with great slaughter (, iii. 304). He returned to England, broken in health, about 29 Sept. 1236 (ib. iii. 378). When Frederick II summoned a conference of princes at Vaucouleurs, Henry selected Peter des Roches as one of his representatives. But he refused the mission, on the ground that the king, who, in his latest communication with the emperor, had spoken ill of him, would expose himself to a charge of fickleness if he now pronounced him a trusted counsellor (ib. iii. 393). In the same year the legate Otho brought about a public reconciliation between Peter and Hubert de Burgh and his other enemies (ib. iii. 403). His last public utterance was characteristic. An embassy had come in 1238 from the Saracens, asking aid against the Tartars. Peter, who happened to be present, gave his opinion, ‘Let the dogs devour one another and perish. We, when we come to the remnant of the enemies of Christ, shall slay them, and clean the surface of the earth; and the whole world shall be subject to one catholic church; and there shall be one shepherd and one flock.’ He died on 9 June 1238 at Farnham. His heart was buried at Waverley, his body in a modest tomb he had chosen for himself in Winchester Cathedral (, iii. 489; Ann. Wav. ii. 319).

Peter was the founder of numerous churches. On his manor of Hales, which John had granted him for that purpose on 16 Oct. 1214 (Charter Rolls, 201 b), he erected a Premonstratensian abbey, which was nearly finished on 5 June 1223 (Close Rolls, i. 530;, Monasticon, ed. 1817–33, vol. vi. pt. ii. p. 926). In 1221 he founded at Winchester a house of Dominican friars (, vol. vi. pt. iii. p. 1486). His other foundations were the Premonstratensian abbey of Titchfield in Hampshire in 1231 (ib. vi. 931), the Austin priory of Selborne in the same county in 1233 (ib. vi. 510), and a hospital of St. John the Baptist at Portsmouth some time in John's reign (ib. vi. 761). He intended to found two Cistercian abbeys, and left money and instructions in his will for that purpose. They were founded by his executors in 1239, one at a place which was called ‘locus Sancti Edwardi’ on 25 July, and the other at Clarté-Dieu in France (Ann. Wav. ii. 323). He left fifty marks to the house of St. Thomas of Acre.

Peter des Roches was a typical secular bishop. By turns he was warrior, military engineer, builder, financial agent, statesman, and diplomatist, and his life almost began and ended amid the clash of arms. Never sparing in magnificence when the occasion demanded it, he was an admirable manager, and left his bishopric in an excellent condition. The monks of St. Swithin's, Winchester, like the people and barons of England, found him a hard master, and they objected to the election of William de Valence, another foreigner and the king's nominee, to the vacant see, ‘eo quod Petrus de Rupibus durus ut rupes fuerit’ (Annales de Theokesberia, i. 110).

[The Charter, Patent, Close, Norman, and other Rolls published by the Record Commission, are of primary importance, especially for the earlier years. The narrative sources are Roger of Wendover, the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris, the Annals of Winchester, Dunstable, Worcester, Osney, Margam, Burton, and Tewkesbury (in Annales Monastici, ed. Luard); Ralph Coggeshall, the Historical Collections of Walter of Coventry, including the Chronicle of the Canon of Barnwell, and the continuations of Gervase of Canterbury and William of Newbury (all published in the Rolls Series). The French poem L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal (ed. P. Meyer, Societé de l'Histoire de France, 1893–4) supplies several interesting episodes, and contradicts the previous authorities on some points. The chief modern works are Stubbs's Constitutional History, Ch.-Petit Dutaille's Étude sur la vie et le règne de Louis VII (1187–1226), Paris, 1894, and M. Lecointre-Dupont's Pierre des Roches, évêque de Winchester (Poitiers, 1868). The last book attributes to Peter's influence the efforts put forth to hold the English lands in Aquitaine and reconquer those already lost.]  PETER (d. 1268), ninth Count of Savoy, and marquis in Italy, was seventh son of Thomas I of Savoy by Margaret de Faucigny. He was born at the castle of Susa in Italy, according to Guichenon in 1203, but perhaps the true date may be as much as ten years later (, p. 159). Boniface of Savoy [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, was his younger brother, and Eleanor and Sanchia of Provence, the wives of Henry III and Richard of Cornwall, were his nieces. Peter was intended originally for an ecclesiastical career, and was made a canon of Valence in Dauphiné; in 1224 there is a reference to him as ‘clericus;’ in 1226 he is mentioned as canon of Lausanne and provost of Aosta (ib. p. 31;, iv. 58, 65, 71–2; , i. 183), and in 1229 as provost of Geneva. In the latter year he was procurator of the see of Lausanne during a vacancy (Monumenta