It was from this moment however that his position changed.

As yet it had been that of a foreigner, confounded in the eyes of the nation at large with the Poitevins and Provencals who swarmed about the court.

But in the years of retirement which followed Simon's return to England his whole attitude was reversed.
There was as yet no quarrel with the king: he followed him in a campaign across the Channel, and shared in his defeat at Saintes.

But he was a friend of Grosseteste and a patron of the Friars, and became at last known as a steady opponent of the misrule about him.

When prelates and barons chose twelve representatives to confer with Henry in 1244 Simon stood with Earl Richard of Cornwall at the head of them.