no one who can protect it.”  The fortunate absence of Randolph of Chester on crusade made it easy to carry out this plan.  Accordingly the king of twelve years was supposed to be capable of acting for himself.  But the ultimate authority resided with the new legate Pandulf, who, without any formal designation, was the real successor of the marshal.  This arrangement naturally left great power to Peter des Roches, who continued to have the custody of the king’s person, and to Hubert the justiciar, who henceforth acted as Pandulf’s deputy.  Next to them came the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Langton’s share in the struggle for the charters was so conspicuous, that we do not always remember that it was as a scholar and a theologian that he acquired his chief reputation among his contemporaries.  On his return from exile he found such engrossing occupation in the business of his see, that he took little part in politics for several years.  His self-effacement strengthened the position of the legate.

Pandulf was no stranger to England.  As subdeacon of the Roman Church he received John’s submission in 1213, and stood by his side during nearly all his later troubles.  He had been rewarded by his election to the bishopric of Norwich, but was recalled to Rome before his consecration, and only came back to England in the higher capacity of legate on December 3, 1218, after the recall of Gualo.  He had been the cause of Langton’s suspension, and there was probably no love lost between him and the archbishop.  It was in order to avoid troublesome questions of jurisdiction that Pandulf, at the pope’s suggestion, continued to postpone his consecration as bishop, since that act would have subordinated him to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  But neither he nor Langton was disposed to push matters to extremities.  Just as Peter des Roches balanced Hubert de Burgh, so the archbishop acted as a makeweight to the legate.  When power was thus nicely equipoised, there was a natural tendency to avoid conflicting issues.  In these circumstances the truce between parties, which had marked the regency, continued for the first years after Earl William’s death.  In all doubtful points the will of the legate seems to have prevailed.  Pandulf’s correspondence shows him interfering in every matter of state.  He associated himself with the justiciar in the appointment of royal officials; he invoked the papal authority to put down “adulterine castles,” and to prevent any baron having more than one royal stronghold in his custody; he prolonged the truce with France, and strove to pacify the Prince of North Wales; he procured the resumption of the royal domain, and rebuked Bishop Peter and the justiciar for remissness in dealing with Jewish usurers; he filled up bishoprics at his own discretion.  Nor did he neglect his own interests; his kinsfolk found preferment in his English diocese, and he appropriated certain livings for the payment of his debts, “so far as could be done without