The quarrel with the Church and fear of their revolt only deepened his oppression of the nobles.

He drove De Braose, one of the most powerful of the Lords Marchers, to die in exile, while his wife and grandchildren were believed to have been starved to death in the royal prisons.

On the nobles who still clung panic-stricken to the court of the excommunicate king John heaped outrages worse than death.

Illegal exactions, the seizure of their castles, the preference shown to foreigners, were small provocations compared with his attacks on the honour of their wives and daughters.

But the baronage still submitted.