tool.

The Bishop of Winchester began to show his hand. Between June 26 and
July 11, nineteen of the thirty-five sheriffdoms were bestowed on Peter
of Rivaux for life. As Segrave was sheriff of five shires, and the
bishop himself had acquired the shrievalty of Hampshire, this involved
the transference of the administration of over two-thirds of the
counties to the bishop's dependants. On the downfall of Hubert, Segrave
became justiciar. He was not the equal of his predecessors either in
personal weight or in social position, and did not aspire to act as
chief minister. The appointment of a mere lawyer to the great Norman
office of state marks the first stage in the decline, which before long
degraded the justiciarship into a simple position of headship over the
judges, the chief justiceship of the next generation. Hubert's offices
and lands were divided among his supplanters. Peter of Rivaux became
keeper of wards and escheats, castellan of many castles on the Welsh
march, and the recipient of even more offices and wardships in Ireland
than in England. The custody of the Gloucester earldom went to the
Bishop of Winchester. The last steps of the ministerial revolution were
completed at the king's Christmas court at Worcester. There Rivaux, who
had yielded up before Michaelmas most of his shrievalties, was made
treasurer, with Passelewe as his deputy. Of the old ministers only the
chancellor, Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, was suffered to remain
in office. Finally the king's new advisers imported a large company of
Poitevin and Breton mercenaries, hoping with their help to maintain
their newly won position. The worst days of John seemed renewed.

The Poitevin gang called upon Hubert to render complete accounts for
the whole period of his justiciarship. When he pleaded that King John
had given him a charter of quittance, he was told that its force had