Peter Des Rivaux

Peter Des Rivaux (born c. 1190, Poitou, Fr.—died 1262) was one of the Poitevin administrators who dominated the government of young King Henry III of England from 1232 to 1234; Peter failed in his efforts to create an all-powerful central administration.

His father (or uncle), Peter des Roches (bishop of Winchester, 1205–38), became tutor to Henry upon the King’s accession. Peter des Rivaux served as a king’s clerk from 1218 to 1223 but was exiled from England when Henry threw off Peter des Roches’s tutelage in 1227. Returning to England under Henry’s protection in 1230, Peter des Rivaux was appointed treasurer of the household in June 1232.

After Henry stripped the powerful Hubert de Burgh, the last of the great justiciars, of his authority (July–November 1232), Peter des Rivaux took over the machinery of government. He immediately initiated a drastic overhaul of the financial and administrative system. These innovations, if fully executed, would have made Henry the richest and most powerful monarch in Europe, but the English barons, led by Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury, forced Henry to dismiss Peter des Rivaux and the other Poitevins in 1234. Peter served as baron of the exchequer again in 1253 and keeper of the wardrobe in 1257–58, but he never regained his former power.