of Devon, and by the grant of Cornwall to the bastard of the last of the Dunstanville earls.  Though Isabella, Countess of Gloucester, John’s repudiated wife, was as zealous as her new husband, the Earl of Essex, against John’s son, Falkes kept a tight hand over Glamorgan, on which the military power of the house of Gloucester largely depended.  Randolph of Chester was custodian of the earldoms of Leicester and Richmond, of which the nominal earls, Simon de Montfort and Peter Mauclerc, were far away, the one ruling Toulouse, and the other Brittany.  The band of foreign adventurers, the mainstay of John’s power, was still unbroken.  Ruffians though these hirelings were, they had experience, skill, and courage, and were the only professional soldiers in the country.

The vital fact of the situation was that the immense moral and spiritual forces of the Church remained on the side of the king.  Innocent III. had died some months before John, but his successor, Honorius III., continued to uphold his policy.  The papal legate, the Cardinal Gualo, was the soul of the royalist cause.  Louis and his adherents had been excommunicated, and not a single English bishop dared to join openly the foes of Holy Church.  The most that the clerical partisans of the barons could do was to disregard the interdict and continue their ministrations to the excommunicated host.  The strongest English prelate, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, was at Rome in disgrace.  Walter Grey, Archbishop of York, and Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln, were also abroad, while the Bishop of London, William of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, was incapacitated by illness.  Several important sees, including Durham and Ely, were vacant.  The ablest resident bishop, Peter des Roches of Winchester, was an accomplice in John’s misgovernment.

The chief obstacle in the way of the royalists had been the character of John, and the little Henry of Winchester could have had no share in the crimes of his father.  But the dead king had lately shown such rare energy that there was a danger lest the accession of a boy of nine might not weaken the cause of monarchy.  The barons were largely out of hand.  The war was assuming the character of the civil war of Stephen’s days, and John’s mercenaries were aspiring to play the part of feudal potentates.  It was significant that so many of John’s principal supporters were possessors of extensive franchises, like the lords of the Welsh March, who might well desire to extend these feudal immunities to their English estates.  The triumph of the crown through such help might easily have resolved the united England of Henry II. into a series of lordships under a nominal king.