Bishop Aymer Valence WINCHESTER

   Another name for Aymer was WINCHESTER Bishop.

   General Notes:

Bishop of WINCHESTER.

BOOKS
A History of The Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co
p160: "If that were true, she soon ceased to allow such considerations to control her actions. She had five sons by hersecond marriage, and it must have been clear to her that anything which widened the breach between the French Crown and the family of Lusignan would make it still more difficult to provide for all of them. She had always been vain, capricious and troublesome, and at this state she seems to have permitted the worst sides of her nature to take possession of her mind to the exclusion of everything else.
p162: "The disgrace of the family of Lusignan had the effect which Isabella should have foreseen earlier. Her husband lost most of his possessions. There would be enough for Hugh, the first son, but what of the four younger sons and three daughters? There was only one way to provide for them, and that was to send them toEngland and let Henry assume the burden.
"In 1247, a year after their mother's death, four of them arrived at Dover- William, Guy, Aymer, and Alice- the rest being too young to venture from home. They were in charge of the cardinal bishopof Sabina, who was going to England as papal legate; a healthy group of young people whose natural good looks were somewhat marred by the way they wrinkled their noses in disgust at the English climate, the people, and everything they could seeof England itself.
"Instead of being annoyed by the responsibility thus heaped upon him, Henry was delighted with his young relatives and made it his concern (but not at his own expense) to provide for them handsomely...
"Guy does not seem to have stayed long, but Henry filled his saddlebags on his departure with so much gold that more horses had to be secured. It would have been a wonderfully fine thing for England if Aymer had returned at the same time, because the youngest of the trio of brothers was to prove himself more troublesome and obnoxious even than William. He had been intended for the Church and could have ranked even with Boniface in point of unsuitability, being violent, overbearing, grasping, andbrash. Henry, with his usual lack of judgment about people, seems to have taken a particular fancy to Aymer. He went to infinite pains, and aroused a corresponding amount of indignation among his subjects, in finding benefices for him. Aymer received the rich church of St. Helen in Abingdon, the rectory of Wearmouth, and many other profitable livings. His appointments were so numberous, in fact, that the young man had to appoint a steward to collect his income. This was no more thana beginning. The chapter of Durham stoutly refused to elect him as their bishop on the ground that he was too young and ignorant, and not all the threats Henry made could lead them to a change of mind. Then in 1250 the Bishop of Winchester died and Henry insisted that Aymer be selected to succeed him. The Winchester chapter refused, using the same arguments employed at Durham and adding for good measure that the King's candidate was not yet in holy orders, being no more than an acolyte.
"What his representatives, John Mansel and Peter Chacepork, had failed to do, Henry now decided to take on himself. He went to Winchester and, assuming the seat in the chapter house reserved for the bishop, proceeded to exhort the monks in the most extraordinary way. `I was born in this city,' he declared, `and baptized in this church: wherefore you are bound to me by the ties of great affection and ought not to oppose my will in any way...My brother Aymer, if elected, willfor a long time enlighten this church, like the sun, with the rays of his noble and royal extraction, and of his most willing kindness and youth in which he is pleasing both to God and man.' At the end of a long discourse he came to the one point which mattered, that if the monks opposed him he would find means to punish them most severly.
"The poor monks, realizing that an appeal to Rome would do them no good, gave in most reluctantly and chose the youth of noble and royal extraction as their spiritual leader. A year later the appointment was confirmed by the Pope at Lyons, and the new bishop, now one of the most richly endowed men in England, began to live in high and mighty state. The monkd of Winchester soon hadgood reason to repent of their weakness in electing Aymer. He oppressed them and on one occasion kept them shut up in their chapter house for three days without food. Some of them ran away and took sanctuary in the monasteries...
"The twoparties clashed with particular bitterness on one occasion. Aymer, taking advantage of the absence of Boniface, placed an appointee of his own as prior of the hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr at Southwark, which was within the province of Canterbury. Eustace of Lyons, a high official at Canterbury, ordered the man to vacate and, when this had no effect, seized him and put him in one of the episcopal prisons. Aymer got together an armed force and set the archbishop's manor at Maidstone on fire. He then attacked the palace at Lambeth, tearing the doors of their hinges and getting possession of the person of Eustace of Lyons, who had just been ready to sit down to his dinner, and put him in prison. The clash was so sudden and violent that the nation gasped with surprise. Bans of excommunication 9which were hurled about these days as freely as maledictions0 flew back and forth, and it looked as though something in the nature of civil war in the world of copes and miters would be the result. Boniface came back and did some excommunicating of his own, including everyone who might have been concerned in the episode with the sole exception of the royal family. Henry, taking on himself the role of peacemaker,summoned both Boniface and Aymer to attend him when he went to Winchester for the Christmas festivities. After a bountiful breakfast, supplied most generously by the townspeople (Henry did not forgo his intention, however, of demanding two hundred marks from them as a gift), he called the two prelates together and forced them to exchange the kiss of peace, after Aymer had declared that he had not directed the violent measures of his people. This brought the incident to a close..." p245: "The hated King's Men had not been under personal attack during the proceedings at Oxford. They had served on the committee of twenty-four and they would not have been distrubed had they not elected to stand out against the Council. Even though Prince Edward came forward boldly in their favor, the four Lusignans were convinced by the bitterness of the storm raised throughout the country that flight was the only course left them. They attempted to get away but, realizing theimpossibility of making their escape, took refuge in Aymer's castele at Winchester. Here they were joined by Edward, but this did not stop the baronial party form laying siege promptly to the place. Lacking the supplies for defense, the brothers were compelled to surrender.
"They were treated with more consideration than might have been expected under the circumstances. They were told they must leave the country, and a choice was presented to them: the first, exile for all of them; the second, a proposal that Guy and Geoffrey abjure the realm while William and Aymer were to be retained in custody in England. The brothers chose the first course. Dover was then fixed as their port of departure, and it was agreed that they might take the sum of six thousand marks with them. All their properties in England would be confiscated, but a subsistence arrangement would be made for them after their departure..."

Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, AMS Press, 1905,
p64: "...A minor result of Louis' triumph was the well-deserved ruin of Hugh of Lusignan and Isabella of Anouleme. The proud spirit of Isabella did not long tolerate her humiliation. She retired to Fontevraud and diedthere in 1246. Hugh X followed her to the tomb in 1248. Their eldest son Hugh XI suceeded him, but the rest of their numerous family turned for support to the inexhaustible charity of the King of England. Thus in 1247 a Poitevin invasion of the king's half-brothers and sisters recalled to his much-tried subjects the Savoyard invation of ten years earlier. In that single year three of the kin's brothers and one of his sisters accepted his invitation to make a home in England... William, called from the Cistercian abbey in which he was born William of Valence, secured, with the hand of Joan of Munchensi, a claim to the great inheritance that was soon to be scattered by the extinction of the male line of the house of Marshal..."
p99: "...One June 11 [1258] the magnates once more assembled, this time at Oxford. A summons to fight the Welsh gave them an excuse to appear attended with their followers in arms. The royalist partisans nicknamed the gathering the Mad Parliament, but its proceedings were singularly business-like. A petition tion of twenty-nine articles was presented, in which the abuses of the [Henry III] administration were laid bare in detail. A commission of twenty-four was appointed who were to redress the grievances of the nation, and to draw up a new scheme of government. According to the compact Henry himself selected half this body. It was significant of the falling away of the mass of the ruling families from the monarchy, that six of Henry's twelve commissioners were churchmen, four were aliens, three were his brothers, one his brother-in-law, one his nephew, one his wife's uncle...The rest included the three Lusignan brothers, Guy, William, and Aymer, stilleight years after his election only elect of Winchester...
"...In strong contrast to these creatures of court favour were the twelve nominees of the barons...
"...The twenty-four drew up a plan of reform which left little to be desired in thoroughness. The Provisions of Oxford, as the new constitution was styled, were speedily laid before the barons and adopted...For the first time in our history the king was forced to stand aside from the discharge of his undoubted functions, and suffer them to be exercised by a committee of magnates. The conception of limited monarchy, which had been foreshadowed in the early struggles of Henry's long reign, was triumphantly vindicated, and, after weary years of waiting, the baronial victors demanded more than had ever been suggested by the most free interpretation of the Great Charter..."
p102: "...[1258] The Poitevins soon found that they could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it, occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in Aymer's castle of Wolvesey..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol VI, p397, Lusignan:
"...Nine children were born to Isabella and Hugh X, five of whom went to England at the invitation of their half brother, Henry III. There they were rewarded with lands, riches, and distinctions at the expense of the English barons, who eventually revolted against Henry and forced the exile of the Lusignan brothers from England in 1258..."