y people to
enter in their retinue, and to live upon their lands; and they gave them
protection in all their robberies and extortions.

* Brady's App. No. 144. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 83.

** M. Paris, p. 210. * Trivet, p. 174

*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 276.

No one was more infamous for these violent and illegal practices than
the earl of Albemarle; who, though he had early returned to his duty,
and had been serviceable in expelling the French, augmented to the
utmost the general disorder, and committed outrages in all the counties
of the north. In order to reduce him to obedience, Hubert seized an
opportunity of getting possession of Rockingham Castle, which Albemarle
had garrisoned with his licentious retinue: but this nobleman, instead
of submitting, entered into a secret confederacy with Fawkes de Breaute,
Peter de Mauleon, and other barons, and both fortified the Gastle of
Biham for his defence, and made himself master by surprise of that of
Fotheringay. Pandulf, who was restored to his legateship, was active in
suppressing this rebellion; and with the concurrence of eleven bishops,
he pronounced the 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 associates
gradually deserted him; and he himself was obliged at last to sue for
mercy. He received a pardon, and was restored to his whole estate.

This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the
result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure
to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged
Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to
persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune and
to set at nought all law and justice. When thirty-five verdicts were at
one time found against him, on account of his violent expulsion of so
many freeholders from their possessions, he came to the court of justice
with an armed force, seized the judge who had pronounced the verdicts,
and imprisoned him in Bedford Castle. He then levied open war against
the king; but being subdued and taken prisoner, his life was
granted him; but his estate was confiscated, and he was banished the
kingdom.[**]

* Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 102.

** Rymer, vol. i. p. 198. M. Paris, p. 221, 224. Ann. Waverl
p. 188, Chron. Dunst vol