Just as the Marshal seems to have despaired of victory in Wales, so around 12 January the king abandoned the Marches where he had been confined for the past three months, returning to London by slow stages. En route, he made a deliberate detour to visit des Roches' cathedral city of Winchester, spending at least three nights there between 24 and 27 January. The intention may have been to prepare for forthcoming negotiations in London. The threat that the English bishops would excommunicate the court was the king's chief concern. Whatever his desire to retain des Roches in power, Henry was equally anxious to avoid a breach with the church. Immediately after leaving Winchester he authorized a gift to Edmund, the archbishop-elect of Canterbury.

At the council convened at Westminster on 2 February, it was Edmund who served to focus criticism against des Roches, accusing him of hating the people of England and of estranging Richard Marshal, the finest Englishman of them all. Des Roches was blamed for every disaster of the past thirty years: the loss of Normandy, the squandering of the wealth of King John, the Interdict, the siege of Bedford, and the loss of La Rochelle and Poitou. Together with de Rivallis, he had engineered the present crisis for personal gain, fortifying castles against the king's own subjects, devouring every office of state without the least intention of rendering accounts. Scarcely a writ could be issued without de Rivalli's seal or authorization, so that he and the ‘Poitevins’ were sovereign in England rather than the king. Eleanor of Brittany, the royal princesses and many noble heiresses were in alien hands, or disparaged by alien marriages.