recommended the bishop's nephew Robert to John, but afterwards complained that Robert had received the provostship which he had hoped to obtain for himself (Epp. 70, 114, 130). Another of his friends against whom he found occasion to complain was Bishop Reginald of Bath, who had suspended Peter's vice-archdeacon, contrary to the privileges which Peter had obtained from the Roman court at the Lateran Council in 1179 (ib. 58). In the autumn of 1181 he was sent by the archbishop to the king in the matter of the see of Lincoln (Ep. 75). On 19 Aug. 1183 he was at Canterbury when Waleran of Rochester swore fealty to Christ Church (Gervase, i. 306).
In 1184 Baldwin became archbishop, and several letters written in his name by Peter in the next few years are extant (Epp. 96, 98, 99). Peter at first acted vigorously in defence of the archbishop's proposed church at Hakington. Gervase, mentioning Peter's presence at the conference at Canterbury on 11 Feb. 1187, describes him as the ‘shameless artificer of almost all this mischief.’ Soon afterwards Peter was despatched by Baldwin to the Roman court; but he stopped on the way to obtain support from important persons in France, and did not reach Verona until June (Gervase, i. 354, 356). Peter and his colleague William, precentor of Wells, were unable to effect anything against the inveterate hostility of Pope Urban, but remained at the court till the pope left Verona in September (ib. i. 366–9; Epp. Cant. 72, 81). Peter rode with the pope on his way to Ferrara, and importuned him on behalf of Baldwin. Urban, in wrath, replied, ‘May I never mount horse again if I do not shortly dismount him from his archbishopric!’ That very night Urban was taken ill at Sutoro or Futoro, and on 20 Oct. died at Ferrara (Ep. 216). Peter reported the news to Baldwin with indecent satisfaction, and announced the accession of Gregory VIII (Epp. Cant. 107). He remained at the court for some time longer in Baldwin's interest, and in all spent eight months to no purpose, except to incur a heavy burden of debt. A few years later he pleaded to Prior Geoffrey of Canterbury that he had only undertaken the business at the bidding of Henry II (Epp. 39, 238). However, he was present in the archbishop's service when the Christ Church envoys came to the king at Le Mans in February 1189, and by Baldwin's command broke the seal of the royal letter, that additional clauses might be inserted (Epp. Cant. 283). The news of the battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem had arrived while Peter was present at the Roman court (cf. Ep. 224, which reports the former event to Henry II, and Passio Reginaldi, iii. 261), and from this his lively interest in the progress of the third crusade perhaps originates.
The death of Henry II in 1189 deprived Peter of his most powerful friend; in the following year Archbishop Baldwin went on the crusade, and Peter says he would have left England had it not been for the support he received from the bishops of Durham and Worcester (Ep. 127). In 1190, if not before, he received the royal deanery of Wolverhampton, for he appeals to Longchamp, as chancellor and legate, for aid against the sheriff of Staffordshire (ib. 108). Peter strongly condemned Hugh de Nonant [q. v.] for his share against Longchamp in October 1191 (ib. 87, 89). Almost immediately afterwards he went to Queen Eleanor in Normandy, and during the next few years acted as her secretary (ib. 144–6). Reginald FitzJocelin died in December 1191; Peter had perhaps been on bad terms with his old friend, for he was soon afterwards, if not previously, deprived of his archdeaconry (ib. 149, 216). But, as some compensation, he obtained, perhaps in 1192, the archdeaconry of London from Richard Fitzneale [q. v.], together with the prebend of Hoxton. After Hubert Walter became archbishop, Peter seems for a time to have resumed his position as secretary at Canterbury (ib. 122, 135). Peter's letters during his last years are full of complaints of his poverty, and suggestions that his merits had been unjustly slighted. Much to his distaste, Richard Fitzneale had made him take priest's orders (ib. 123, 139). The burden of his archdeaconry was too great for him, and it was so poor that, like a dragon, he must live on wind; and in 1204 we find him appealing to Innocent III to increase his revenues, and to relieve him from the annoyance caused by the pretensions of the precentor (ib. 151, 214, 217, 244; cf. Ralph de Diceto, i. pref. p. lxxxi, Rolls Ser.) His fellow canons at Salisbury unreasonably required him to reside, though his prebend was so poor that it would not pay his expenses (Ep. 133). The canons of Wolverhampton were unruly, and, though supported by the king and archbishop, he could not make the necessary reforms; in consequence he resigned his deanery to Hubert Walter, who proposed to introduce Cistercian monks (ib. 147, 152; cf. Dugdale, Monast. Angl. vi. 1443, 1446; Cal. Rot. Claus. i. 8, 25 b, 56; Peter's resignation may have been as late as 1204; after Hubert's death the king appointed a new dean on 5 Aug. 1205, ib. i. 44 b). The rents of a prebend which Peter had at Rouen had been wrongfully withheld
