bishop, but the pope gave him leave to retain the revenues he derived from the church before his consecration. Although he was now splendidly provided for, the king forced the abbot of St. Albans to grant him a yearly pension of ten marks.
The bishop-elect of Winchester attended the assembly of bishops held at London on 18 Oct. 1352 to deliberate on the pope's grant to the king of a tenth of the revenues of the clergy for three years. Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, opposed the demand. Aymer argued that, as pope and king were united, the clergy had no choice; and that, as the French had agreed to a like demand, the English ought to do the same. He seems, however, to have said this as the king's advocate, for he agreed with Grosseteste and most of the other bishops in refusing to be bound by the grant. The king was very wroth with him for this, and when Aymer took leave of him with the words, 'I commend you to the Lord God,' answered, 'And I you to the living devil,' reproaching him bitterly with ingratitude. Soon after this Aymer quarrelled with Boniface of Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury, the uncle of the queen. During the archbishop's absence from England, he instituted a certain clerk as prior of the hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr, at Southwark. The archbishop's official, finding that the rights of Canterbury had been infringed on, called on the prior to resign, and on his refusal excommunicated him. The prior continued contumacious, and the official had him seized and taken to the archbishop's manor of Maidstone. When Aymer heard this, he gathered a band of men, and with the connivance of William, his brother, and John of Warrenne, his brother-in-law, sent them to seize the official. They sought him at Southwark and then at Maidstone, and not finding him there, set fire to the house. At last they found him at the manor of Lambeth, and brought him with many insults to Farnham. Aymer did not dare to keep him, and drove him from the castle. The archbishop excommunicated all concerned in this outrage. Aymer, however, commanded the dean of Southwark and others to declare the sentence of no effect. The foreigners at the court were divided, the Poitevins against the Provencals, the king's men against the queen's men, while the English heartily wished that they would destroy one another. The archbishop succeeded in stirring up popular feeling against the bishop-elect by laying his case before the university of Oxford. At the festival of Epiphany in the next year, the king as usual being at Winchester for Christmas, a reconciliation was arranged, and Aymer swore that the violence done was without his knowledge and will. In the parliament held at London in April 1253, the bishop-elect, with two others, was sent by the bishops to the king to entreat him to allow the church liberty of election. Henry answered that the bishops of his appointment had better resign, and turning to Aymer, reminded him how he had gained his bishopric for him by threats and entreaties when, on account of his youth and his ignorance, he ought to have been at school. The next year Aymer appears to have promised to join the king, who was then fighting in Gascony.
Aymer made the monks of Winchester bitterly repent their compliance with the king's order to elect him, for he greatly oppressed them, keeping them shut up in the church for three days without food. They fled from his violence, and took shelter in other monasteries. He dispossessed the prior, and filled the convent with men of a baser sort, whom he made monks of his house. Even the king disapproved of his violence. The prior appealed to Home. Henry warned his brother of the insatiable thirst of the papal court for gold, and in answer Aymer boasted that the spring of his wealth would not dry up. His gifts exceeded the gifts of the prior, and he gained the suit. The prior he had set up kept his office, but his false monks grew weary of their life and left the convent, and he made the old monks come back to their house again. He managed to get some profit even out of his suit with the prior. In order to gain money to carry on their case, the convent had recourse to the Caursins (or Caorsini),the great money-lenders of the day. Aymer paid the debt on condition of receiving the isle of Portland and some other places from the convent. After he was dead the monks petitioned the king that these places might be given back to them, for they said that they had been taken from them unlawfully. Aymer had no sympathy with English feeling in any shape, and when in 1255 the bishops were in difficulty owing to the demands of Rustand, the papal envoy, they suspected that his heart was not with them, and so took no counsel with him. In 1250 he was in Poitou from 25 Jan. to 17 Sept. On the death of Walter Gray, archbishop of York, the king refused to confirm the election of Sewall de Bovill, for he hoped to get the archbishopric for Aymer. Sewall, however, lost no time in applying to Rome; his election was confirmed by the pope, and the king's scheme failed. In January 1257 Aymer was sent on an embassy to France to gain a prolongation of the truce. Later in the year he was again sent with other ambassadors
