ds the second period of Henry's reign. William
Marshal expelled the armed foreigner. Hubert restored the
administration to English hands. Matthew Paris puts into the mouth of a
poor smith who refused to fasten fetters on the fallen minister words
which, though probably never spoken, describe with sufficient accuracy
Hubert's place in history: "Is he not that most faithful Hubert who so
often saved England from the devastation of the foreigners and restored
England to England?" Hubert was, as has been well said, perhaps the
first minister since the Conquest who made patriotism a principle of
policy, though it is easy in the light of later developments to read
into his doings more than he really intended. But whatever his motives,
the results of his action were clear. He drove away the mercenaries,
humbled the feudal lords, and set limits to the pope's interference. He
renewed respect for law and obedience to the law courts. Even in the
worst days of anarchy the administrative system did not break down, and
the records of royal orders and judicial judgments remain almost as
full in the midst of the civil war as in the more peaceful days of
Hubert's rule. But it was easy enough to issue proclamations and writs.
The difficulty was to get them obeyed, and the work of Hubert was to
ensure that the orders of king and ministers should really be respected
by his subjects. He made many mistakes. He must share the blame of the
failure of the Kerry campaign, and he was largely responsible for the
sorry collapse of the invasion of Poitou. He neither understood nor
sympathised with Stephen Langton's zeal for the charters. A
straightforward, limited, honourable man, he strove to carry out his
rather old-fashioned conception of duty in the teeth of a thousand
obstacles. He never had a free hand, and he never enjoyed the hearty
support of any one section of his countrymen. Hated by the barons whom
he kept away from power, he alienated the Londoners by his high-handed
violence, and the tax-payers by his heavy exactions. The pope disliked
him, the aliens plotted against him, and the king, for whom he
sacrificed so much, gave him but grudging support. But the reaction
which followed his retirement made many, who had rejoiced in his
humiliation, bitterly regret it.

Three notable enemies of Hubert went off the stage of history within a
few months of his fall. The death of Richard le Grand has already been
recorded. William Marshal, the brot