not less brilliant than momentous. It compelled Louis to accept
the treaty of Lambeth, under which he renounced his claims to the crown and
evacuated England. As the saviour of the national cause the justiciar
naturally assumed after the death of William Marshal (1219) the leadership
of the English loyalists. He was opposed by the legate Pandulf (1218-1221),
who claimed the guardianship of the kingdom for the Holy See; by the
Poitevin Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who was the young king's
tutor; by the foreign mercenaries of John, among whom Falkes de Breaute
took the lead; and by the feudal party under the earls of Chester and
Albemarle. On Pandulf's departure the pope was induced to promise that no
other legate should be appointed in the lifetime of Archbishop Stephen
Langton. Other opponents were weakened by the audacious stroke of 1223,
when the justiciar suddenly announced the resumption of all the castles,
sheriffdoms and other grants which had been made since the king's
accession. A plausible excuse was found in the next year for issuing a
sentence of confiscation and banishment against Falkes de Breaute. Finally
in 1227, Hubert having proclaimed the king of age, dismissed the bishop of
Winchester from his tutorship.

Hubert now stood at the height of his power. His possessions had been
enlarged by four successive marriages, particularly by that which he
contracted in 1221 with Margaret, the sister of Alexander II. of Scotland;
in 1227 he received the earldom of Kent, which had been dormant since the
disgrace of Odo of Bayeux. But the favour of Henry III. was a precarious
foundation on which to build. The king chafed against the objections with
which his minister opposed wild plans of foreign conquest and inconsiderate
concessions to the papacy. They quarrelled violently in 1229, at
Portsmouth, when the king was with difficulty prevented from stabbing
Hubert, because a sufficient supply of ships was not forthcoming for an
expedition to France. In 1231 Henry lent an ear to those who asserted that
the justiciar had secretly encouraged armed attacks upon the aliens to whom
the pope had given English benefices. Hubert was suddenly disgraced and
required to render an account of his long administration. The blow fell
suddenly, a few weeks after his appointment as justiciar of Ireland. It was
precipitated by one of those fits of passion to which the king was prone;
but the influence of Hubert had been for some t