FitzPeter and the Earl of Chester in an expedition into Wales which prevented a threatened Welsh invasion.[573] In October, 1213, Geoffrey FitzPeter died; and on 1st February, 1214, John appointed the Bishop of Winchester chief Justiciar of England.[574] The King’s choice of a foreigner for this office is said to have caused much grumbling among the barons,[575] the more so as John was on the eve of quitting the realm for a military expedition to Aquitaine, so that during his absence, which lasted eight months, Peter was practically viceroy of England. One chronicler asserts that Peter “by misusing his power turned the wrath of the barons against the King”;[576] but there is no proof that the country was any worse administered during those eight months than it had been for several years previously, and nothing to indicate that Peter was guilty of personal tyranny or extortion, or, in short, that he did anything worse than carry on the King’s government as he found it. Nor is it by any means clear that he was really disliked or distrusted, except by one section of the baronage--the section whose lofty patriotism and keen sense of nationality were soon to be displayed in their scheme for the annexation of England to France. The substitution of Hubert for Peter as Justiciar at Midsummer, 1215, may have taken place in deference to the King’s other advisers; but there is no evidence that such was the case; nothing is known about the circumstances of Hubert’s appointment; and it is quite possible that Peter may have resigned the justiciarship of his own accord. [Sidenote: 1216]