This independence was utilized by Roger and his successors, who henceforth played a crucial role in the internal feuds and plots of the Principality. Thus, faced with the repeatedly manifest inability of the Naples-based Angevin Princes to defend the interests of Achaea, in 1341 Roger participated along with other Achaean magnates in a conspiracy to offer control of the principality to John Kantakouzenos, the Byzantine regent; these plans were foiled, however, by the outbreak of the Byzantine civil war. A few years later, in October 1344, at the Council of Roviata Roger headed another group of powerful barons who requested from James III of Majorca, a descendant of the Villehardouin family that had founded the Principality of Achaea, to take over its governance. This appeal too came to nothing, as James was engaged in wars against the Aragonese and was killed in 1349.