This powerful phalanx gave to the royalists a stronger hold in
the west than their opponents had in any one part of the much wider
territory within their sphere of influence. There was no baronial
counterpart to the successful raiding of the north and east, which John
had carried through in the last months of his life. A baronial centre,
like Worcester, could not hold its own long in the west. Moreover, John
had not entirely forfeited his hereditary advantages. The
administrative families, whose chief representative was the justiciar
Hubert de Burgh, held to their tradition of unswerving loyalty, and
joined with the followers of the old king, of whom William Marshal was
the chief survivor. All over England the royal castles were in safe
hands, and so long as they remained unsubdued, no part of Louis'
dominions was secure. The crown had used to the full its rights over
minors and vacant fiefs. The subjection of the south-west was assured
by the marriage of the mercenary leader, Falkes de Breaute, to the
mother of the infant Earl of Devon, and by the grant of Cornwall to the
bastard of the last of the Dunstanville earls.
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