mitted Peter an old debt to the crown of 300l., granted him the custody of two Shropshire manors, and made him a present of three tuns of Gascon wine (Rôles Gascons, i. 305, 307). Peter was the first witness to the grant of Wales, Ireland, and Gascony to the king's son Edward on 14 Feb. 1254 (ib. i. 309). He then returned to Spain with John Mansel, and on 31 May 1254 signed a treaty with Alfonso at Toledo, by which the Castilian king yielded up his pretended claims on Gascony. In October he was with Henry at Bordeaux, just before the king's re-embarkation for England. He was thence despatched, along with Henry of Susa, archbishop of Embrun, to Innocent IV, who, in March 1254 had granted the Sicilian throne to Henry III's younger son, Edmund [see Lancaster, Edmund, Earl of, (1245–1296)], and was now threatening to revoke the grant if help were not sent to him in his struggle against Manfred. Peter was given full powers to treat. But Innocent died at Naples in December, and Peter of Aigueblanche completed the negotiations with Innocent's successor, Alexander IV. On 9 April 1255 Alexander duly confirmed the grant of the Sicilian throne to Edmund on somewhat stringent conditions. He also made a series of grants of church revenues in England to provide Henry with funds for pursuing Edmund's claims. Among these was a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues according to the new and strict taxation. This latter had originally been assigned to the crusade, and Peter had in 1252 been appointed with others to collect it and hand it over to the king when he went beyond sea (Bliss, Cal. Papal Letters, i. 279). These exactions were resented with extraordinary bitterness by the English prelates and monasteries, and the majority of the monastic chroniclers accuse Peter of Aigueblanche of being the author of their ruin. Peter's methods of procuring money were certainly characterised by much chicanery. According to Matthew Paris (Hist. Major, v. 510–13, ‘De nimis damnosa proditione Episcopi Herefordensis’) and the Osney chronicler (pp. 107–8), he procured from the king blank charters, sealed by various English prelates, and filled them up at Rome with pledges to pay large sums of money to various firms of Florentine and Sienese bankers who had advanced money to the pope on Henry's account. Most of the English bishops and monasteries were consequently called upon to pay sums of money to Italian bankers. Peter seems to have procured a blank document dated at London on 6 Sept. 1255, with the seals of seven English bishops, and to have subsequently inscribed in it words making it appear that the bishops had witnessed and consented to Peter's acceptance, as their proctor, of the conditions attaching to the papal grant of Apulia to the English king (Muratori, Antiquitates Ital. vol. vi. col. 104 D). This seems to have been interpreted by Henry as pledging the credit of the English clergy to support Edmund's attempt on the Sicilian crown, and all the expenses involved in it. Paris speaks of Peter's ‘foxlike cunning,’ and says that ‘his memory exhales a detestable odour of sulphur.’ The Osney chronicler draws the moral that prelates should keep their seals more carefully in the future (cf. Dunstaple Chronicle, p. 199; Wykes, pp. 125–7; Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 185).
In May 1255 Alexander IV commissioned Rustand, a papal subdeacon and native of Gascony, to collect the crusading tenth in England. His arrival excited a great commotion among the English. In the parliament of October 1255 Henry could get no money, and Richard of Cornwall violently attacked the bishop of Hereford (Matt. Paris, v. 520–1). At the same time the prelates met in London, and, headed by the bishop of Worcester, resisted Rustand and appealed to the pope (ib. v. 524–5). Peter strove in vain to divide them (ib. v. 527). It was said that he had bound the English bishops to pay two hundred thousand marks to the pope. Meanwhile, Peter crossed over to Ireland, where also he was empowered to collect the tenth. He travelled armed, and was surrounded by a band of armed men (ib. v. 591). Paris adds that he took a large share of the spoil as his own reward.
Peter did not remain long in England or Ireland. In 1256 he was again in Gascony, where he acted as deputy for the new duke, Edward. On 17 Jan. 1257 he received a letter of thanks from Henry for his services in Gascony (Fœdera, i. 353). It appears from this that he was conducting important negotiations with Alfonso of Castile and with Gaston of Béarn. But he was now of ponderous weight, and was moreover attacked with a polypus in his nose, which disfigured his face. He was compelled to retire to Montpellier to be cured. Matthew Paris rejoices indecently in the bishop's misfortunes, and sees in his ‘shameful diseases’ the judgment of God for his sins (Hist. Major, v. 647). But either Matthew exaggerated Peter's complaints, or the Montpellier doctors effected a speedy cure. In the summer of 1258 Peter was in Savoy, and began his foundation at Aiguebelle, which he completed several years later.
