While Gregory IX. did more to help Henry against Louis than Honorius III., the inflexible character and lofty hierarchical ideals of this nephew of Innocent III. made his hand heavier on the English Church than that of his predecessor.  Above all, Gregory’s expenses in pursuing his quarrel with Frederick II. made the wealth of the English Church a sore temptation to him.  With his imposition of a tax of one-tenth on all clerical property to defray the expenses of the crusade against the emperor, papal taxation in England takes a newer and severer phase.  The rigour with which Master Stephen, the pope’s collector, extorted the tax was bitterly resented.  Not less loud was the complaint against the increasing numbers of foreign ecclesiastics forced into English benefices by papal authority, and without regard for the rights of the lawful patrons and electors.  A league of aggrieved tax-payers and patrons was formed against the Roman agents.  At Eastertide, 1232, bands of men, headed by a knight named Robert Twenge, who took the nickname of William Wither, despoiled the Romans of their gains, and distributed the proceeds to the poor.  These doings were the more formidable from their excellent organisation, and the strong sympathy everywhere extended to them.  Hubert, who hated foreign interference, did nothing to stop Twenge and his followers.  His inaction further precipitated his ruin.  Archbishop Richard had already poisoned the pope’s mind against him, and his suspected connivance with the anti-Roman movement completed his disfavour.  Bitter letters of complaint arrived in England denouncing the outrages inflicted on the friends of the apostolic see.  It is hard to dissociate the pope’s feeling in this matter from his rejection of the nomination of the king’s chancellor, Ralph Neville, Bishop of Chichester, to the see of Canterbury, as an illiterate politician.

The dislike of the taxes made necessary by the Welsh and French wars, such as the “scutage of Poitou” and the “scutage of Kerry,” swelled the outcry against the justiciar.  So far back as 1227 advantage had been taken of Henry’s majority to exact large sums of money for the confirmation of all charters sealed during his nonage.  The barons made it a grievance that his brother Richard was ill-provided for, and a rising in 1227 extorted a further provision for him from what was regarded as the niggardliness of the justiciar.  Nor did Hubert, with all his rugged honesty, neglect his own interests.  He secured for himself lucrative wardships, such as the custody for the second time of the great Gloucester earldom, and of several castles, including the not very profitable charge of Montgomery, and the important governorship of Dover.  On the very eve of his downfall he was made justice of Ireland.  His brother was bishop of Ely, and other kinsmen were promoted to high posts.  He was satisfied that he spent all that he got in the King’s service, in promoting the interests of the kingdom, but his enemies regarded him as unduly tenacious of wealth and office.  All classes alike grew disgusted with the justiciar.  The restoration of the malign influence of Peter of Winchester completed his ruin.  The king greedily listened to the complaints of his old guardian against the minister who overshadowed the royal power.  At last, on July 29, 1232, Henry plucked up courage to dismiss him.