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 he reiterated his
orders to the earl [e]. 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 malecontents
took into the confederacy the Earls of Chester, Warrenne, Gloucester,
Hereford, Warwick, and Ferrers, who were all disgusted on a like
account [f]. 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 [g].
[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 233. [f] M. Paris, p. 233. [g] Ibid.]

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
fitted 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. A proper pageant of state
in a regular monarchy, where his ministers could have conducted all
affai