566 ROGER OF WENDOVER, [A D. 12.13. them in charge of the castles in the varions parts of the kingdom ; these men used their utmost endeavours to oppress the natural English subjects and nobles, calling them traitors, and accusing them of treachery to the king; and he, simple man that he was, believed their lies, and gave them the charge of all the counties and baronies, as also of all the youths of the nobility, both male and female, who were foully degraded by ignoble marriages. The king also entrusted them with the care of h'n treasury, with the enforcement of the laws of the country and the administration of justice. In short, judgment was entrusted to the unjust, laws to outlaws, the preservation of peace to the quarrelsome, and justice to those who were themselves full of injury, and when the nobles of the kingdom laid complaints before the king of the oppression they endured, the said bishop interfered, and there was no one to grant them justice. The said Peter too made accusations against some of the other bishops of the kingdom, and advised the king to avoid them as open enemies. ί/οιο the marshal remonstrated teilh the king. By these and like injuries, high and low were alike oppressed, and earl Richard, marshal of the kingdom, seeing this, and that the laws of the kingdom were being destroyed, was incited by his zeal in the cause of justice, and, in company with some other nobles, boldly went to the king, and, in the hearing of numbers, reproached him with havinghy ill advice introduced these foreigners of Poictou to the oppression of the kingdom and of his natural subjects, and to the subversion of the laws and liberties ; he therefore humbly begged of the king at once to put a stop to such abuses, owing to which, his crown and kingdom were in imminent danger of destruction ; he moreover declared that, if he refused to amend matters, he and the other nobles of the kingdom would withdraw themselves from his councils as long as he held communication with these foreigners. To this Peter bishop of Winchester replied, that his lord the king was surely allowed to summon as many foreigners as he chose for the protection of his kingdom and crown, and as many and such men as would be able to reduce his haughty and rebellions subjects to their proper obedience. The earl Marshal and the other nobles being unable to obtain any other answer, left the court in dismay, and made a fixed determination one \nth another to fight for this cause, which concerned them all, -till their souls were separated from their bodies. Of the thunder-storms. In the same year, on the 23rd of March, dreadful flninderings were beard, followed by inundations of rain throughout the whole summer, which destroyed the warrens and Hashed awav the ponds and mills throughout almost all Kngland ; and in tlie ploughed and harvest fields and other unusual places in different parts, the water ran about in rivulets and formed into lakes in the midst of