lf by playing the part of mediator; and in September Henry met his
sons at Gisors to discuss terms of peace. His terms were refused and the
meeting broke up; but Henry remained practically master of the situation.

Meanwhile in England the rebellion had broken out in July. The Scottish
army ravaged the north; the Earl of Leicester, with an army of Flemings
which he had collected by the help of Louis and the younger Henry,
landed on the coast of Suffolk, where Hugh Bigod was ready to welcome
him. De Lucy and Bohun hurried from the north to meet this formidable
danger, and with the help of the Earls of Cornwall, Arundel, and
Gloucester, they defeated Leicester in a great battle at Fornham on the
17th of October. The earl himself was taken prisoner, and 10,000 of his
foreign troops were slain. He and his wife were sent by Henry's orders
to Normandy, and there thrown into prison. A truce was made with
Scotland till the end of March. The king of France and the younger Henry
abandoned hope, "for they saw that God was with the king;" and there
was a general pause in the war.

With the spring of 1174, however, the strife raged again on all sides.
Ireland rose in rebellion. William of Scotland marched into England
supported by a Flemish force. Roger Mowbray, and probably the Bishop of
Durham, were in league with him. Earl Ferrers fortified his castles in
Derby and Stafford; Leicester Castle was still held by the Earl of
Leicester's knights; Huntingdon by the Scot king's brother; and the Earl
of Norfolk was joined in June by a picked body of Flemings. The king's
castles at Norwich, Northampton, and Nottingham, were taken by the rebels,
and a formidable line of enemies stretched right across mid-England.
At the same time France and Flanders threatened invasion with a strong
fleet, and "so great an army as had not been seen for many years." Count
Philip, who had set his heart on the promised Kent, and on winning
entrance into the lands of the Cistercian wool-growers of Lincolnshire,
swore before Louis and his nobles that within fifteen days he would attack
England; the younger Henry joined him at Gravelines in June, and they only
waited for a fair wind to cross the Channel.

The justiciars were in an extremity of despair. "Seeing the evil that
was done in the land," they anxiously sent messenger after messenger to
the king. But Henry had little time to heed English complaints. Richard
had declared war in Aquitaine; Maine and Anjou