428 
ANTIQUITIES 
LETTER VII. 
SHALL now proceed to tlie Priory, wMcli is 
undoubtedly the most interesting part of 
our history. 
The Priory of Selborne was founded by 
Peter de la Roche, or de Eupibus,^ one of those 
accomplished foreigners that resorted to the court of King 
John, where they were usually caressed, and met with a 
more favourable reception than ought, in prudence, to have 
been shown by any monarch to strangers. This adventurer 
was a Poictevin by birth, had been bred to arms in his 
youth, and distinguished by knighthood. Historians all 
agree not to speak very favourably of this remarkable 
man ; they allow that he was possessed of courage and fine 
abilities, but then they charge him with arbitrary prin- 
ciples and violent conduct. By his insinuating manners 
he soon rose high in the favour of John; and in 1205, early 
in the reign of that prince, was appointed Bishop of Win- 
chester. In 1214 he became Lord Chief Justiciary of 
England, the first magistrate in the state, and a kind 
of viceroy, on whom depended all the civil afiairs in 
the kingdom. After the death of John, and during the 
minority of his son Henry, this prelate took upon him the 
entire management of the realm, and was soon appointed 
protector of the king and kingdom. 
The barons saw with indignation a stranger possessed of 
all the power and influence, to part of which they thought 
they had a claim ; they therefore entered into an association 
against him, and determined to wrest some of that authority 
from him which he had so unreasonably usurped. The 
bishop discerned the storm at a distance ; and, prudently;./ 
^ See Godwin " de Prassulibus Angliae," folio, Cant. 1743, p. 217. — 
G. W. 
