[3] The fact that an unusual number of Anglo-Norman lordships at the time were held by minors gave him an opportunity to assert the royal authority more forcefully than previous viceroys, especially in Ulster and Connacht.

[3] His interest in Irish affairs was no doubt partly due to his own large landholdings in Ireland, acquired by his marriage to Isabel Bigod, whose mother Maud Marshal was a great Anglo-Irish heiress.

On 1 April 1258 Aymer, bishop of Winchester, sent a posse to attack John Fitzgeoffrey's men at Shere in Surrey, killing one of them.

[5] He was not entitled to succeed his half-brother as Earl of Essex in 1227, the earldom having devolved from his father's first wife.

He died suddenly on 23 November 1258 and, despite his hostility to the king, Henry III ordered a mass to be celebrated for his soul and donated a cloth of gold to shroud his coffin.