AYMER, or 1ETHELMAR, OF

See also:

• VALENCE

VALENCE (d. 126o)  , bishop of Winchester, was a half-brother of Henry III . His mother was Isabelle of Angouleme, the second wife of King John, his father was Hugo of Lusignan, the count of La Marche, whom Isabelle married in 122o . The children of this marriage came to England in 1247 in the hope of obtaining court preferment . In 1250 the king, by putting strong pressure upon the electors, succeeded in obtaining the see of Winchester for Aymer . The appointment was in every way unsuitable . Aymer was illiterate, ignorant of the English language, and wholly secular in his mode of life . Upon his head was concentrated the whole of the popular indignation against the foreign favourites; and he seems to have deserved this unenviable distinction . At the parliament of Oxford (1258) he and his brothers repudiated the new constitution prepared by the barons . He was pursued to Winchester, besieged in Wolvesey castle, and finally compelled to surrender and leave the kingdom . He had never been consecrated; accordingly in 1259 the chapter of Winchester proceeded to a new election . Aymer, however, gained. the support of the pope; he was on his way back to England when he was over- taken by a fatal illness at Paris . See W .

Stubbs' Constitutional History, vol. ii . (1896); G . W . Prothero's Simon de Montfort (1877); W . H . Bleauw's Barons' War (1871) .