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fortunate for him that he had been on a long drawn out mission for the King in Germany when Queen Alinor finally erupted into open rebellion and was taken and imprisoned. That Simon did not agree with her had nothing to do with the case. He would have followed her and fought for her and ended in prison or with his head on the executioner's block. |
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King Henry was well aware of Simon's weakness. Even with the Queen kindly but firmly imprisoned, he dared not permit too great a concentration of power to fall into Simon's hands. Normally the slightest stain of dishonor was abhorrent to Simon, but had he headed an army capable of breaking Queen Alinor's prison and had she commanded him to use his power in that manner, King Henry had his doubts about Simon's ability to resist. Simon was very long on devotion and very short on common sense where the Queen was concerned. |
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Thus Henry sent Simon to the outlying reaches of the kingdomto play mentor to Richard when he was a young eagle trying his wings, to bring rebellious petty barons to heel, to bring justice to corrupt shires, to enforce the King's writ wherever there seemed doubts that it would be obeyed. In all things that did not touch the Queen, King Henry had trusted Simon; he had asked, and sometimes even followed, his counsel. And in all things that did not touch the Queen, Simon had served the King faithfully, fighting his enemies up and down the length and breadth of the far-flung realm until he was acknowledged as invincible a warrior as he was incorruptible a judge. |
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In the last few years that incorruptibility had brought him out of favor with the King. As Henry's troubles pressed closer upon him, as he saw his two remaining sons preparing to tear him apart to gain their inheritance prematurely by arranging his death, he grew more arbitrary, more rapacious, more paranoid. He demanded fines where no crimes had been committed, |
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