A new seneschal of Poitou and Gascony, Hugh of Vivonne, had been appointed on 4th January.[812] He undertook the office with evident reluctance and forebodings--or hopes--of a speedy return;[813] and at the end of nine months he seems, like many another before him, to have found himself unequal to the difficulties of the situation. A Gascon noble of greater fame and a more highly trained and widely practised diplomatist were sent both at once to relieve and supersede him. The first was Savaric de Mauléon; the second was Pandulf. On 6th October the prelates, barons, and people of Poitou and Gascony were informed that the King had committed those two counties and their appurtenances to Savaric,[814] and also that he was sending Pandulf--now described as “bishop elect of Norwich, and chamberlain to the Pope”--into Poitou “for great and difficult matters,” in which the inhabitants of the land were exhorted to give the ex-Legate every assistance in their power.[815] Pandulf seems to have set out on his mission immediately, and in the full expectation that it would be one of considerable duration; on 12th October he had letters of protection for a year from All Saints’ day.[816] The primary purpose of that mission was, seemingly, to negotiate with Hugh of La Marche. Hugh and Isabel were still clamouring for Isabel’s Aquitanian dower-lands; the English government was determined not to restore these till Hugh had performed his homage and surrendered the lands given him by John in pledge for the dowry of Joan; which lands Hugh was equally determined to keep until his wife’s claims were satisfied. By the end of September Hugh’s aggressions had become so intolerable that the English Council retaliated by seizing into the King’s hand all the lands held in England by Hugh and Isabel as part of Isabel’s dower.[817] But to retaliate in Aquitaine itself was not so easy. One great difficulty was, as usual, the want of money. The mayor and commune of London stood surety for the King to the mayor and commune of La Rochelle for the repayment of two loans, which the last-named city was requested to make “for the safe-keeping and defence of our land of Poitou,” the one of a thousand marks to Pandulf, the other of five hundred marks to Engelard de Cigogné and Emeric de Sacy, who were despatched at the same time as Pandulf, also on business “touching our land of Poitou.”[818] On 1st November letters were addressed to the mayors and good men of Cognac, Saintes, Angoulême, and Oléron, bidding them withdraw from all further allegiance to the count of La Marche, and recognize no commands save those of the King’s seneschal of Poitou.[819] No name was given to the seneschal in this letter. The acting seneschal was still Hugh of Vivonne; Savaric, it seems, was even more reluctant than Hugh had been to undertake the office--he was probably more fully aware of its difficulty--and made his acceptance of it dependent on the fulfilment