Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/67

 cured his removal from the council (, pp. 187, 351). Peter was instrumental in effecting the reconciliation between Henry and his son Edward in 1260, and was one of the king's advisers in his breach of the provisions in 1261 (Flores Historiarum, iii. 255; Cont., ii. 211, 213; Ann. Mon. iv. 128). It was alleged that Richard de Clare was poisoned at Peter's table in July 1262 (ib. iii. 219).

When the war broke out in 1263 the hostility of the English towards all foreigners compelled Peter to leave the country. His nephew Boniface, count of Savoy, had just been defeated in Piedmont, and lay dying in prison at Turin. Peter was at Chambéry on 7 June; three days later he took the titles of Count of Savoy and marquis in Italy, in succession to Boniface. Shortly afterwards he crossed the Alps, and reduced Turin to submission. He returned north in time to attend the conference at Boulogne in September (Cont., ii. 225). On 17 Oct. King Richard invested him with his county at Berkhampstead, and made him vicar of the empire in Savoy, Chablais, and Aosta, and granted him the lands of Hartmann de Kybourg in Vaud (, iv. 600–28). In December Henry vainly endeavoured to obtain Peter's admission to Dover (Cont., ii. 230). Peter took no part in the war of 1264; in June he was with Queen Eleanor at St. Omer, endeavouring to collect a force for the invasion of England, and during the autumn was at Damme in Flanders with a like purpose (Chron. Edward I and Edward II, i. 64;, iv. 647–55; , pp. 149–56). It is possible that he may have afterwards crossed over to his castle of Pevensey, and defended it in person against the younger Simon de Montfort, and he was perhaps at Pevensey in March 1265, when he was summoned to attend at London on 1 June (Fœdera, i. 601; BéMONT, p. 234). However, in May he was certainly at Romont in Vaud, and probably did not again return to England (, iv. 684–5). After the battle of Evesham, restitution of Peter's lands, which had been seized by the barons, was ordered to be made on 12 Sept.; but before 6 May 1266 the earldom of Richmond was bestowed on John of Brittany, though Peter does not appear to have abandoned his claim to it (Fœdera, i. 817, 835;, iv. 749, 760). In October 1265 Peter became involved in a war with Rudolph of Hapsburg, the future emperor, in defence of his sister, Margaret of Kybourg. This quarrel was terminated by a treaty at Morat on 8 Sept. 1267 (ib. iv. 696, 739). Peter died on 16 or 17 May 1268, after a long illness, probably at Pierre-Châtel in Petit-Bugey, and not, as is sometimes stated, at Chillon (ib. iii. 116–17, iv. 752;, p. 363). He was buried in the abbey of Hautecombe on 18 May (Mon. Hist. Sabaud. i. 174, 674; the date of his death has been wrongly given as 7 June).

By his wife, who survived him, he had an only daughter, Beatrix (d. 1310), married as a child in 1241 to Guy VII of Dauphiné, and after Guy's death to Gaston of Béarn in 1273 (, iv. 149, 813). By his last will, dated 7 May 1268, Peter left most of his English property to his niece Eleanor. His palace in London was bequeathed to the hospice of the Great St. Bernard, from which community Eleanor purchased it. This palace, outside the city of London, ‘in vico vocato le Straund,’ had been the house of Brian de Lisle, and was bestowed on Peter by Henry in 1246 (, i. 263). Eleanor gave it to her son Edmund. To these circumstances the historic Savoy palace owes its name and its still subsisting association with the duchy of Lancaster. The famous castle of Chillon in Vaud is even now much as Peter made it when it was his favourite residence. In 1250 he had acquired from the church of St. Maurice in Chablais the ring of St. Maurice (ib. i. 290). This ring was afterwards used in the investiture of the counts and dukes of Savoy, as it had been in that of the ancient kings of Burgundy.

Peter is described in the ‘Chroniques de Savoye’ as ‘a prudent man, proud, hardy, and terrible as a lion; who so held himself in his time that he put many folk in subjection under him, and was so valiant that men called him “le petit Charlemagne”’ (Mon. Hist. Sabaud. i. 146, cf. 605, 672). His good government and wise legislation endeared him to his subjects; while his acquisitions in Vaud and Valais materially increased the power of his family, though they afforded a subject of dispute between the heirs of his daughter and his successors as count of Savoy. In English politics his position must be clearly distinguished from that held by Henry's Poitevin kinsmen, or even by his own brother, Boniface. Matthew Paris (iv. 88) calls him, with justice, ‘vir discretus et providus;’ he was the wisest of Henry's personal friends and counsellors; but, while he remained loyal to the king, he had a just appreciation of his position as an English earl, and of the need for reform. It was unfortunate for Henry that Peter's obligations in his native land prevented him from identifying himself more entirely with his adopted country.