whom he engaged in his service, placing them in charge of the castles in the various 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 his 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. THE PAPAL LEGATE AND THE CLERKS OF OXFORD (1238). +Source.+--_Matthew Paris_, _Chronica Majora_, vol. i., pp. 126-129. (Bohn's Libraries.) At this time, the legate, having come to Oxford, and been received with the highest honour, as was due to him, was entertained in the house of the canons, which was at Oseney Abbey, where the scholar-clerks before breakfast-time sent him an honourable present, in the way of meat and drink, and after breakfast proceeded to his place of abode to pay their salutation to him, and to visit him out of respect. On their approach, however, a transalpine porter, with unbecoming and improper raillery, raising his voice after the manner of the Romans, and holding the door a little open, said: "What do you want?" To which the clerks replied: "We want his lordship the legate, that we may pay our respects to him;" for they confidently believed that they would receive honour for honour. The doorkeeper, however, with taunting speeches, saucily refused admittance to them all, with haughtiness and abuse; on seeing which, the clerks rushed forward with impetuosity, and forced their way in, whilst the Roman attendants, in their endeavours to keep them back, struck them with their fists and sticks. Whilst the contending parties were engaged in repeated blows and taunts, it happened that a poor Irish chaplain was standing at the door of the kitchen, and had earnestly besought for something to be given to him in God's name, after the custom of a poor and hungry man, when the master of the legate's cooks (who was also his brother, and whom he had placed at the head of that office, that no poison might be given to him, which he, the legate, greatly feared) heard him, but paid no heed to his request; and, becoming angry with the poor man, threw in his face some boiling water drawn from the caldron where fat meat was being cooked.