The general indignation at last found vent in a wide conspiracy. In 1231
letters from "the whole body of those who prefer to die rather than be
ruined by the Romans" were scattered over the kingdom by armed men; tithes
gathered for the Pope or the foreign priests were seized and given to the
poor; the Papal collectors were beaten and their bulls trodden under foot.
The remonstrances of Rome only made clearer the national character of the
movement; but as enquiry went on the hand of the Justiciar himself was seen
to have been at work. Sheriffs had stood idly by while violence was done;
royal letters had been shown by the rioters as approving their acts; and
the Pope openly laid the charge of the outbreak on the secret connivance of
Hubert de Burgh. No charge could have been more fatal to Hubert in the mind
of the king. But he was already in full collision with the Justiciar on
other grounds. Henry was eager to vindicate his right to the great heritage
his father had lost: the Gascons, who still clung to him, not because they
loved England but because they hated France, spurred him to war; and in
1229 a secret invitation came from the Norman barons. But while Hubert held
power no serious effort was made to carry on a foreign strife. The Norman
call was rejected through his influence, and when a great armament gathered
at Portsmouth for a campaign in Poitou it dispersed for want of transport
and supplies. The young king drew his sword and rushed madly on the
Justiciar, charging him with treason and corruption by the gold of France.
But the quarrel was appeased and the expedition deferred for the year. In
1230 Henry actually took the field in Britanny and Poitou, but the failure
of the campaign was again laid at the door of Hubert whose opposition was
said to have prevented a decisive engagement. It was at this moment that
the Papal accusation filled up the measure of Henry's wrath against his
minister. In the summer of 1232 he was deprived of his office of Justiciar,
and dragged from a chapel at Brentwood where threats of death had driven
him to take sanctuary. A smith who was ordered to shackle him stoutly
refused. "I will die any death," he said, "before I put iron on the man who