ster. The ceremony
took place at St. Peter's Abbey, Gloucester, on October 28, from which
day the new reign was reckoned as beginning. The marshal, who had
forty-three years before dubbed the "young king" Henry a knight, then
for a second time admitted a young king Henry to the order of chivalry.
When the king had recited the coronation oath and performed homage to
the pope, Gualo anointed him and placed on his head the plain gold
circlet that perforce did duly for a crown.[1] Next day Henry's leading
supporters performed homage, and before November 1 the marshal was made
justiciar.

[1] There is some conflict of evidence on this point, and Dr.
Stubbs, following Wendover, iv., 2, makes Peter of Winchester
crown Henry. But the official account in _Faedera, i._, 145, is
confirmed by _Ann. Tewkesbury_, p. 62; _Histoire de G. le
Marechal_, lines 15329-32; _Hist. des ducs de Normandie, et des
rois d'Angleterre_, p. 181, and _Ann. Winchester_, p. 83.
Wykes, p. 60, and _Ann. Dunstable_, p. 48, which confirm
Wendover, are suspect by reason of other errors.

On November 2 a great council met at Bristol. Only four earls appeared,
and one of these, William of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, was a recent
convert. But the presence of eleven bishops showed that the Church had
espoused the cause of the little king, and a throng of western and
marcher magnates made a sufficient representation of the lay baronage.
The chief business was to provide for the government during the
minority. Gualo withstood the temptation to adopt the method by which
Innocent III. had ruled Sicily in the name of Frederick II. The king's
mother was too unpopular and incompetent to anticipate the part played
by Blanche of Castile during the minority of St. Louis. After the
precedents set by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the barons took the
matter into their own hands. Their work of selection was not an easy
one. Randolph of Chester was by far the most powerful of the royalist
lords, but his turbulence and purely personal policy, not less than his
excessive possessions and inordinate palatine jurisdictions, made him
unsuitable for the regency. Yet had he raised any sort of claim, it
would have been hardly possible to resist his pretensions.[1] Luckily,
Randolph stood aside, and his withdrawal gave the aged earl marshal the
position for which his nomination as justiciar at Gloucester had
already marked him out. The title of regent wa