Papal taxation.
Fall of
Hubert de
Burgh.
Matters went on peacefully for some four or five years, and if complaints of misgovernment were heard they were, by the ready action of Hubert, who continued to be justiciar, either remedied or silenced. From 1227 to 1232 Hubert filled the place of prime minister, in very much the same way as Hubert Walter and Geoffrey Fitz Peter had done, sacrificing his own popularity to save his master’s character, and risking his master’s favor by lightening the oppressions and exactions of irresponsible government. Besides the wars with Wales and Scotland which mark these years, and the pecuniary demands which were necessarily made for carrying on the wars, the chief interest of the period arises from the fact that it saw the first of those papal claims and exactions which were to exercise so baneful an influence on the rest of the reign. Archbishop Langton died in 1228, and Henry’s envoys at Rome purchased the confirmation of his successor, Archbishop Richard, by promising the Pope a heavy subsidy to sustain him in his war with the Emperor. When the time came for this demand to be laid before the assembled council Earl Ranulf of Chester took the lead in opposing it. The means taken notwithstanding to exact money roused a strong popular feeling. The papal collectors were plundered, the stores taken in kind were burned; and so ineffectual were the means taken to suppress the outrages, that suspicion fell, not without good reason, on the justiciar himself as conniving at this rough justice. Henry was already weary of his minister, and his strongest feelings were the devotion which he consistently maintained towards the papacy and his determination, equally resolute, to let no scruple prevent him from acquiring money whenever he had the opportunity. Peter des Roches, who had been absent from England for some years on Crusade, had now returned. He lost no opportunity of increasing the king’s dislike to Hubert, and of promoting the interest of the foreigners who were beginning again to speculate on Henry’s weakness. The king was told that his poverty was owing to the dishonesty of his ministers, who were growing rich to his disadvantage; he had no money to carry on war, whilst Hubert de Burgh was becoming more powerful in acquisitions and alliances, and was even using his influence to screen offenders against the Apostolic see. Henry was not slow in learning to be ungrateful. He had been taught by Hubert himself that he must discard the favorite servants of his father; Hubert had to exemplify, however unrighteously, his own lesson.
Victory of
Peter des
Roches.
In July 1232 he was driven from office, overwhelmed, as Becket had been, with charges which it was impossible definitely to disprove; and after some vain attempts to escape, he was before the end of the year a prisoner and penniless. His successor in the justiciarship was Stephen Segrave, a creature of Peter des Roches. Peter himself resumed the influence over the unstable king which he had won in his early years, and filled the court and ministry with foreigners, in whose favor he displaced all the king’s English servants.
Richard Marshall.
Hubert’s fall was great enough in itself to excite pity; even Earl Ranulf of Chester, who had been most opposed to him as a minister, was moved to intercede for him. But far more than his personal disgrace the reversal of his English policy alarmed the baronage. Earl Ranulf, the natural head of opposition, died in 1232; Richard of Cornwall, who had hitherto shown signs of attachment to the national cause, was scarcely fitted to lead an attack on his brother’s ministers; the Earl Marshall Richard, son of the great regent, and younger brother of William Marshall who had married the king’s sister, became the spokesman of the nation. Richard Marshall was one of the most accomplished knights and the most educated gentlemen of the age; but he had to contend against the long experience and unscrupulous craft of Peter des Roches. After a distinct declaration made by the barons to the king, at his suggestion, that they would not meet the Bishop of Winchester in court or council, and a positive demand for the dismissal of the foreign servants who had been placed in office by him, the Earl Marshall was declared a traitor. The king marched against him and drove him into alliance with the disaffected Welsh. A cruel stratagem of Peter des Roches induced him to cross over to Ireland to defend his estates there, and, in a battle into which he was drawn by Peter’s agents, he was betrayed and mortally wounded. For a long time after his death the baronage continued to be without a leader of their own.
Fall of Peter
des Roches.
The cunning of Bishop Peter prevailed to the destruction of Earl Richard, but it was not sufficient to ensure his own position. The barons, although they lost their leader when the Earl Marshall fled, were not inclined to be submissive, and the bishops, now under the guidance of Edmund of Abingdon, the primate consecrated in 1234, insisted that justice should be done to the Earl Marshall and that the foreigners should be removed. The king was compelled to submit; Bishop Peter was ordered to retire from court, and with him fell the men whom he had patronized. But it was too late to do justice to the earl or to stop the measures contrived for his ruin. As a matter of fact the dismissal of Peter des Roches preceded by a few days the death of his victim far away in Ireland. Hubert de Burgh, however, profited by the change and regained his estates, although not his political power, when his rival fell.
Henry’s
plan of governing.