[A.D. 1240-1268.] PETER D’ACQUABLANCA, whose fine tomb remains in the cathedral, (Pt. I. § XIII.,) was one of the intruding “foreigners” by whom England was oppressed during the long reign of Henry III., and whose exactions and tyranny were among the chief causes of the rising of the barons under Simon de Montfort. Like the contemporary Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface, Bishop Peter was a native of Savoy, and had come to England in the train of William of Valence. He obtained the see of Hereford in opposition to a canon of Lichfield,--“vir per omnia commendabilis,” says Matthew Paris,--who had been elected by the canons; but the King affected none but strangers. In 1250 Bishop Peter took the cross, and went, under the banner of the King of France, to the Holy Land. He returned in 1258, bringing letters, which are said to have been forged, but which professed to be those of the Pope, Innocent IV., commanding all religious houses to grant a tenth of their property toward the crusade. During his absence (in 1257) he spent large sums in endeavouring to procure for himself the see of Bordeaux, when the death of the Archbishop had been reported. But after the money had been spent, the Archbishop of Bordeaux proved to be still alive, and the unfortunate Bishop Peter became, says Paris, the subject of infinite jests. In 1263, with other “foreigners,” he was expelled from England; but he returned to the country, though not to his diocese, in the following year, when Henry III. reprimands him by letter, saying, that “coming to Hereford to take order for the disposing the garrisons in the marches of Wales, he found in the church of Hereford neither bishop, dean, vicar, or other officer to discharge the spiritual functions, and that the church and ecclesiastical establishment was in a state of ruin and decay[49].” The Bishop was soon afterwards in Hereford, where he was taken by Simon de Montfort, who seized all his wealth, and imprisoned Bishop Peter in “Ordelay” [Urdley] Castle. He died in 1268, leaving behind him no good reputation, although he had bought the manor of Holme Lacy for the cathedral, and left money for the annual distribution of much corn to the clergy of his church and to the poor. He founded a monastery at his birthplace, Aquabella, or Aquablanca, in Savoy, where his heart was conveyed for entombment, and where a monument with an inscription still remains. His body was interred in his own cathedral, under the canopied tomb already noticed.