Segrave forgot his
knighthood, resumed the tonsure, and took refuge in a church in
Leicester. The king's worst indignation was reserved for Peter of
Rivaux. Peter protested that his orders entitled him to immunity from
arrest, but it was found that he wore a mail shirt under his clerical
garments, and, without a word of reproach from the archbishop, he was
immured in a lay prison on the pretext that no true clerk wore armour.
Of the old ministers Ralph Neville alone remained in office.
With Bishop Peter's fall disappeared the last of the influences that
had prevailed during the minority. The king, who felt his dignity
impaired by the Poitevin domination, resolved that henceforward he
would submit to no master. He soon framed a plan of government that
thoroughly satisfied his jealous and exacting nature. Henceforth no
magnates, either of Church or State, should stand between him and his
subjects. He would be his own chief minister, holding in his own hands
all the strings of policy, and acting through subordinates whose sole
duly was to carry out their master's orders.
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