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Page 319
madness end," Ralph of Chichester pleaded. "I know the Earl of Pembroke"
"Do not say that name to me!" Henry bellowed. "For the people, I have pity. If I could, I would ease their state, but not by bowing down to that traitor. I will have no dealings with him, not unless he come naked before me, creeping on his knees with a halter around his neck and acknowledging himself a foul, treasonous destroyer of me and of my kingdom."
Sir Heribert made himself inconspicuous, cursing Marie for sending him on a fool's errand and for being such a fool herself that she had not mentioned the serious defeat the king's forces had suffered. It was clear to him that Henry was nearly rabid between frustration and furyand both the emotions were intensified by an underlying fear, which the king consciously denied. But Heribert was not willing to yield his one hope without any attempt to better his condition. Later he found an attendant of Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and begged for an interview, which, somewhat to Heribert's surprise, was granted without much delay.
The bishop was a worried and shaken man, not willing to turn away even one minor knight for whom he might conceivably find a use. Ordinarily the defeats suffered by the king's adherents would not have made him desperate. The losses in men and materiel had been great, but England was a rich nation and there were enormous resources that had not yet been tapped. In the long run, Winchester knew, the Earl of Pembroke could not win. The trouble was, Winchester had recently come to realize, that Henry was not a man for long runs.
The king was impetuous and impatient. Winchester had presented to him an ideal, a nation in which the king was so strong that the nobility lived at peace with each other because a just and merciful king could arbitrate their quarrels without war. In such a nation all the wealth and power could be turned against external enemies or inward toward the betterment and beautification of the realm. But Henry could not move slowly toward this purpose; he leapt and grabbed, offending those who should have been led imperceptibly and unknowingly along the path until they understood that they would benefit by yielding what they now thought of as their rights and privileges.

 
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