Many of these accusations were so monstrous that they carried with them their own refutation.  It was too often the custom in the middle ages to overwhelm an enemy with incredible charges for it to be fair to accuse the enemies of Hubert of any excessive malignity.  The substantial innocence of Hubert is clear, for the only charges brought against him were either errors of judgment and policy, or incredible crimes.  Nevertheless he was in such imminent danger that he took sanctuary with the canons of Merton in Surrey.  Thereupon the king called upon the Londoners to march to Merton and bring their ancient foe, dead or alive, to the city.  Randolph of Chester interposed between his fallen enemy and the royal vengeance.  He persuaded Henry to countermand the march to Merton and to suffer the fallen justiciar to leave his refuge with some sort of safe conduct.  But the king was irritated to hear that Hubert had journeyed into Essex.  Again he was pursued, and once more he was forced to take sanctuary, this time in a chapel near Brentwood.  From this he was dragged by some of the king’s household and brought to London, where he was imprisoned in the Tower.  The Bishop of London complained to the king of this violation of the rights of the Church, and Hubert was allowed to return to his chapel.  However, the levies of Essex surrounded the precincts, and he was soon forced by hunger to surrender.  He offered to submit himself to the king’s will, and was for a second time confined in the Tower.  On November 10, he was brought before a not unfriendly tribunal, in which the malice of the new justiciar was tempered by the baronial instincts of the Earls of Cornwall, Warenne, Pembroke, and Lincoln.  He made no effort to defend himself, and submitted absolutely to the judgment of the king.  It was finally agreed that he should be allowed to retain the lands which he had inherited from his father, and that all his chattels and the lands that he had acquired himself should be forfeited to the crown.  Further, he was to be kept in prison in the castle of Devizes under the charge of the four earls who had tried him.

Peter des Roches was soon in difficulties.  The earls who had saved Hubert began to oppose the whole administration.  Their leader was Richard, Earl of Pembroke, the second son of the great regent, and since his brother’s death head of the house of Marshal.  Richard was bitterly prejudiced against the king and his courtiers by an attempt to refuse him his brother’s earldom.  A gallant warrior, handsome and eloquent, pious, upright, and well educated, Richard, the best of the marshal’s sons, stood for the rest of his short life at the head of the opposition.  He incited his friends to refuse to attend a council summoned to meet at Oxford, on June 24, 1233.  The king would have sought to compel their presence, had not a Dominican friar, Robert Bacon, when preaching before the court, warned him that there would be no peace in England until Bishop