Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/286

272 secret confederacy with Fawkes de Briante, Peter de Mouleon, and other barons; fortified the castle of Beliam 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. 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.

This lenity, which was highly impolitic, was most probably owing to some secret combination amongst the turbulent barons, who could not endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order. It had the bad effect of encouraging Fawkes de Briante—one of John's unworthy favourites, who had risen from au obscure estate—to persevere in the course of violence and rapine to which he owed his fortune, and set at defiance the laws of the realm.

When thirty-five verdicts had been found against him for forcibly depriving the same number of freeholders of their estates, he came into the court-house accompanied by an armed force, seized the person of the judge who had presided, and imprisoned him in Bedford Castle, to the great scandal of the nation. He next levied open war against the crown; but being defeated and taken prisoner, his lands were confiscated, and he himself banished the kingdom.

If justice was thus blind or powerless where the culprits were noble, great Severity was exercised upon the humbler classes. A riot occurred at a wrestling-match between the citizens of London and the inhabitants of Westminster, in whivh the former destroyed several houses belonging to the abbot of the last-named place. Probably it might have passed unnoticed but for certain symptoms which the citizens displayed towards the French, making use of the French war-cry, "Mountjoy! Montjoy, and God help us and our lord Louis! This was the real offence for which they were punished. The justiciary made inquiry into the transaction, and proceeded against one Coustantine Fitz-Arnulf, one of the ringleaders, and by martial law ordered him to be hanged without any other form of trial. He also cut off the feet of some of his accomplices.

This act of cruelty, which tarnished the fair fame of Hubert, was also an infringement of the Great Charter; yet the same justiciary, in a parliament which was held at Oxford, granted a confirmation of the charter in the king's name.

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 intention; but finding the king prepared to meet them, they at last desisted from their intention,

When summoned to appear at court to answer for there 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 theirs were retained.

There were 1,115 of these strongholds, according to Hume, at that time in the kingdom.

This is one of the instances in which the influence of the clergy was exerted for the service of the nation. It is true that many of the prelates were little better than the feudal barons; that great corruptions had crept into the Church; that the assumption by the papacy of the suzerainty of England was against all law and common sense. Still, the great sway they held over the people kept the community from falling back into a state of anarchy and confusion. It threw authority into the hands of men who, by their profession, were adverse to arms and deeds of violence, and who still maintained, amid civil war and the shook of arms, those secret links without which it is impossible for human society to exist.

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 by parliament.

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 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 Poitevin and Gascon vassals in their allegiance, but no great action was fought on either side.

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 subject in Christendom; yet his attention to gain threw him sometimes into acts of violence, and gave great disturbance 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