At Christmas John held his court at Windsor, “where he distributed robes of state to a multitude of his nobles.”[863] Immediately afterwards Count Ferrand of Flanders came over to cement his alliance with the English king by performing his homage to him in person, at Canterbury, in the second week of January 1214.[864] Raymond of Toulouse had been over shortly before; the fortunes of war had gone utterly against him, and nothing but prompt succour from John, in some shape or other, could enable him to hold out any longer in his capital city, the sole refuge now left to him. He is said to have gone back, after doing homage to John, with a subsidy of ten thousand marks.[865] Early in January the king announced to the primate and the bishops that he himself was about to depart over sea, and begged that they would lend their support to Bishop Peter of Winchester and the other persons in whose charge he intended to leave the kingdom during his absence.[866] At the end of the month he put in train a scheme for conciliating the eldest son of the late justiciar by marrying him to the greatest heiress in England--that same Countess Isabel of Gloucester who had once been married to John himself.[867] On February 1 John by letters patent appointed Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, to the office of justiciar of England, and committed his realm to the custody and protection of the Holy Roman Church, the Pope and the Legate, leaving Peter as keeper of the peace in his stead.[868] Next day he embarked at Portsmouth with his queen, his son Richard,[869] his niece Eleanor of Britanny, and a quantity of treasure; he spent a few days at Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, and thence sailed to Poitou.[870] [Sidenote: 1214] It was evidently of set purpose that the appointment of a new chief justiciar had been delayed till the very eve of the king’s departure. When it came to the knowledge of the barons, they all grumbled at having a foreigner set over them;[871] but they did not know it till the expedition had sailed, and their discontent could vent itself only in useless words.