in both of them a powerful party of
nobles who joined the revolt. The rebel party was everywhere increased
by all who had joined the young king, "not because they thought his the
juster cause," but in fierce defiance of a rule intolerable for its
justice and its severity. England was no less ready for rebellion. The
popular imagination was still moved by the horror of the archbishop's
murder. The generation that remembered the miseries of the former
anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order
doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises
and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few
barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king,
and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined
the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might
watch how events would go; there was a timid and unstable party who held
outwardly to the king in vigilant uncertainty, haunted by fears that
they should be swept away by the possible victory of his son. Such
descendants of the Normans of the Conquest as had survived the rebellions
and confiscations of a hundred years were eager for revenge. The Earl of
Leicester and his wife were heirs of three great families, whose power had
been overthrown by the policy of the Conqueror and his sons. William of
Aumale was descended from the Count who had claimed the throne in the
Conqueror's days, and bitterly remembered the time before Henry's
accession, when he had reigned almost as king in Northern England.
Hugh of Puiset, Bishop of Durham, whose diocese stretched across
Northumberland, and who ruled as Earl Palatine of the marchland between
England and Scotland; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother of the Scot king;
Roger Mowbray, lord of the castles of Thirsk and Malessart north of York,
and of a strong castle in the Isle of Axholm; Earl Ferrers, master of
fortresses in Derby and Stafford; Hugh, Earl of Chester and Lord of Bayeux
and Avranches, joined the rebellion. So did the old Hugh Bigod, Earl of
Norfolk, who had already fought and schemed against Henry in vain twenty
years before. The Earls of Clare and Gloucester on the Welsh border were
of very doubtful loyalty. Half of England was in revolt, and north
of a line drawn from Huntingdon to Chester the king only held a few
castles--York, Richmond, Carlisle, Newcastle, and some fortresses of
Northumberland. The land beyond