nobles, soldiery, and people, headed by five bishops in then robes, with crosses and banners, cluuiting and praising God for a victory that men deemed nothing less than miraculous. A French version of this battle is that a single French ship carrying Eustace the Monk left the main body of the fleet to attack a few English vessels that were crossing the channel; and that this ship was attacked by four English ones, and, being unsupported by the rest, was destroyed. Eustace was slain, and the French fleet then put back to their own shore (Gul. Armoric. Recueil, xvii. 111). Hubert's victory led to the treaty of Lambeth, 11 Sept. 1217, to which he was a party, and to the evacuation of England by the French.
The death of the regent in 1219 gave Hubert the first place in the kingdom after the legate. His special work was to 'replace the working of the administrative system in English hands' (Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 32). In this work he had to contend against a powerful foreign interest. The real head of the foreign party, which aimed at appropropriating all administrative offices, was Peter des Roches, the Poitevin bishop of Winchester, upheld for a while by the legate Pandulf; the ostensible leaders were William of Aumale, the Earl of Chester, and Falkes de Breauté. In his struggle with this party Hubert upheld the right of Englishmen to all offices in their own administrative system; he was thus the 'first of our statesmen to convert the emotion of nationality into a principle of political action' (Shirley, Introd. Royal Letter of Hen. III'). The first sign of the coming struggle was a dispute about the appointment of a seneschal for Poitou. Pandulf and the bishop of Winchester were in favour of giving the office to a Poitevin, while Hubert wished for an Englishman. The efforts of Archbishop Longton and Hubert, brought about the resignation of Pandulf, and the justiciar thus gained the supreme power. He had many enemies, and their number was increased by his imprudent severity. When, in 1322, a riot broke out in London, he seized and hansed the ringleader, Constantine, one of the chief men of the city, with his nephew, and one of his principal abettors, and took a large number of prisoners, whom he caused to be mutilated before they were released. These severe measures were not forgotten by the Londoners. Some part of the hatred of the nobles against Hubert arose from jealousy. The young king trusted him implicitly. He had great wealth, partly derived from royal grants, and partly from his marriages. His first wife was Joan, daughter of William, earl of Devon, lord of the Isle of Wight, and widow of William Brewer, the younger; his eecond was Beatrice, daughter of William of Warenne, and widow of Lord Bardulf; his third, Isabella, daughter and heiress of William, second earl of Gloucester, the repudiated wife of King John, and at the time of her marriage with Hubert the widow of Geoffrey MandeviUe, fifth earl of Essex. All these marriages greatly enriched bim. In 1221 he made a yet higher match; for when the marriage of Alexander II of Scotland and Joan, King Henry's sister, was celebrated at York, Hubert married Margaret, Alexander's sister, in the same city. The anger of the nobles against Hubert was aggravated by the demand that the royal castles which had been committed by John into the keeping of different lords should be surrendered to the crown, a measure highly needful for the main tenonce of orderly government, and for the attainment of the national policy of which Hubert was the representative. An attempt was made by William of Aumale in 1221 to resist this demand, and its utter failure served for a while to strengthen Hubert's position. The discontent, however, was too deep to be easily quelled, and the Earl of Chester next came forward as the mouthpiece of the foreign party which desired to disturblhepeace of the kingdom. In January 1223 the archbishop held a council at London to compose the dipute that had arisen between the Earl of Chester on the one side and the Earl of Salisbury and the justiciar who are called regents ('regis rectores et regni,' Will. Cov. ii, 251) on the other. A threat of excommunication kept matters quiet for a time. In order to make the position of the discontented lords completely untenable, Hubert, in 1223 procured a letter from Honorius III, declaring Henry competent to govern, and commanding the barons to obey him. Towards the end of the year he conducted a successful campaign in Wales. On his return he found the discontented lords engaged in a conspiracy to seize the Tower of London, in order to force the king to dismiss him. He prevented their design. Then the archbishop and bishops persuaded the leaders of the party to come to the king. They laid their complaints before him, declaring, according to one writer unfavourable to Hubert, that he was a waster of the royal treasure and an oppressor of the people. Hubert turned fiercely on the Bishop of Winchester, accused him of being at the bottom of the disturbance, and called him a traitor. The bishop in answer vowed that he would get the justiciar turned out of office if it cost him every penny he had, and left the council in a rage (Ann. de Dunstap. ill. 84). Peace was made between the parties by the archbishop. The overthrow of Falkes
