This furious action threw the whole company into confusion, and put
an end to the treaty.[***]
The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend oft the state of
affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most imminent
danger. One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his foreign
confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and all its
other fortresses, into the hands of ihe earl of Flanders:[****] yet so
little national or public spirit prevailed among the independent English
nobility, so wholly bent were they on the aggrandizement each of himself
and his own family, that, notwithstanding this pernicious concession,
which must have produced the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of
them had conspired to make an insurrection, and to support the prince's
pretensions.
[* Hoveden, p. 539.]
[** Hoveden, p. 536. Brompton, p. 1085.]
[*** Hoveden, p. 536.]
[**** Hoveden, p. 533. Brompton, p. 1084. Gal.
Neubr. p. 508.]
The king's principal resource lay in the church and the bishops with
whom he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a rebellion, or
that they were entirely satisfied with Henry's atonement for the murder
of Becket and for his former invasion of ecclesiastical immunities.
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