No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than the Earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty, and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the counties of the north. In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert seized an opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle, which Albemarle had garrisoned with his licentious retinue; but this nobleman, instead of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy with Falkes de Breauté, and other barons, fortified the castle of Beham for his defence, and made himself master of that of Fotheringay. Pandulph, who had been re-appointed legate, showed great activity in the suppression of this rebellion. With the consent of eleven bishops, he pronounced sentence of excommunication against Albemarle and his adherents; an army was levied; a scutage of ten shillings—a knight's fee—was imposed on all the military tenants. Albemarle's adherents, terrified by the vigour of these proceedings, gradually deserted him, and he himself was reduced to sue for mercy. But such was his influence, and the unsettled state of the nation, that he not only received a free pardon, but was restored to his whole estate. Shortly afterwards (1221) Stephen Langton obtained the recall of Pandulph to Rome, and for eight years Hubert de Burgh was at the head of affairs.

The state of weakness into which the crown had fallen made it imperative for the ministers to use every exertion for the preservation of what remained of the royal prerogative, as well as to ensure the public liberties. Hubert applied to the Pope, the lord paramount of England, to issue a bull by which Henry was declared of age and entitled to govern. It was granted, and the justiciary resigned into the hands of the youthful sovereign the important fortresses of the Tower of London and Dover Castle, which had been committed to his custody, and at the same time called upon those barons who held similar trusts to imitate his example.

The nobles refused compliance; and the Earls of Chester and Albemarle, John de Lacy, Brian de L'Isle, and William de Cautel even entered into a conspiracy to surprise London, and assembled in arms at Waltham with that purpose; but finding the king prepared to meet them, they at last desisted from their intention. When summoned to appear at court to answer for their conduct, the rebels appeared, and not only confessed their design, but told Henry that, though they had no bad intentions against his person, they were determined to remove the justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, from his office. A second time they met in arms at Leicester with the same intention; but the primate and bishops, finding everything tending towards civil war, interposed their authority, and menaced them with excommunication if they persisted in detaining the king's castles. This threat prevailed, and most of the fortresses were surrendered. The barons complained bitterly that the justiciary's castle was soon afterwards restored to him, whilst their castles were retained. De Burgh seized the opportunity to ruin Falkes de Breauté. Accused of laying hands on one of the lords justices, he was besieged and taken prisoner at Bedford and condemned to perpetual exile (1224).

DEFEAT OF FRENCH FLEET IN ENGLISH CHANNEL.

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Notwithstanding the disturbed state of his kingdom, Henry found himself obliged to carry on war against France, and for this purpose employed the subsidy of a fifteenth which had been granted him. His former rival, now king of that country under the title of Louis VIII., instead of complying with Henry's claim for Normandy, which he had promised to restore, entered Poitou, took La Rochelle, after an obstinate siege, and seemed determined to expel the English from such provinces as remained to them in France. The king sent over his uncle, the Earl of Salisbury, and his brother, Prince Richard, whom he had created Earl of Cornwall. They succeeded in arresting the progress of Louis and retained the Gascon vassals in their allegiance, but no great action was fought on either side. Poitou, however, remained French. The Earl of Cornwall, after remaining two years in Guienne, returned to England.

This prince was nowise turbulent or factious in his disposition: his ruling passion was to amass money, in which he succeeded so well as to become the richest person in Christendom; yet his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence, and gave great trouble to the government. There was a manor, which had formerly belonged to the earldom of Cornwall, but had been granted to Waleran de Ties before Richard had been invested with that dignity, and while the earldom remained in the crown. Richard claimed this manor, and expelled the proprietor by force; Waleran complained. The king ordered his brother to do justice to the man, and restore him to his rights; the earl said that he would not submit to these orders till the cause should be decided against him by the judgment of his peers. Henry replied that it was first necessary to reinstate Waleran in possession before the cause could be tried, and reiterated his orders to the earl. We may judge of the state of the government, when this affair had nearly produced a civil war. The Earl of Cornwall, finding Henry peremptory in his commands, associated himself with the young Earl of Pembroke, who had married his sister, and who was displeased on account of the king's requiring him to deliver up some royal castles which were in his custody. These two malcontents took into the confederacy the Earls of Chester, Warrenne, Gloucester, Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were all disgusted on a like account. They assembled an army, which the king had not the power or courage to resist; and he was obliged to give his brother satisfaction by grants of much greater importance than the manor, which had been the first ground of the quarrel.

The character of the king, as he grew to man's estate, became every day better known, and he was found in every respect unqualified for maintaining a proper sway among those turbulent barons whom the feudal constitution subjected to his authority. Gentle, humane, and merciful even to a fault, he seems to have been steady in no other circumstance of his character, but to have received every impression from those who surrounded him, and whom he loved, for the time, with the most imprudent and most unreserved affection. Without activity or vigour, he was unfit to conduct war; without policy or art, he was ill suited to maintain peace; his resentments, though hasty and violent, were not dreaded, while he was found to drop them with such facility; his friendships were little valued, because they were neither derived from choice nor maintained with constancy. His true place was in a proper pageant of state in a regular monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all affairs in his name; but he was too feeble in those disorderly times to sway a sceptre, whose weight depended entirely on the firmness of the hand which held it. The ablest and most virtuous monitor that ever Henry possessed was Hubert de Burgh, a man who had been faithful to the crown in the most difficult and dangerous times, and yet showed no desire, even when at the height of power, to enslave or oppress the people. He was aided in his patriotic government by Stephen Langton, whose death in 1228 was a grave blow to the national party.