He drove away the mercenaries,
humbled the feudal lords, and set limits to the pope's interference. He
renewed respect for law and obedience to the law courts. Even in the
worst days of anarchy the administrative system did not break down, and
the records of royal orders and judicial judgments remain almost as
full in the midst of the civil war as in the more peaceful days of
Hubert's rule. But it was easy enough to issue proclamations and writs.
The difficulty was to get them obeyed, and the work of Hubert was to
ensure that the orders of king and ministers should really be respected
by his subjects. He made many mistakes. He must share the blame of the
failure of the Kerry campaign, and he was largely responsible for the
sorry collapse of the invasion of Poitou. He neither understood nor
sympathised with Stephen Langton's zeal for the charters. A
straightforward, limited, honourable man, he strove to carry out his
rather old-fashioned conception of duty in the teeth of a thousand
obstacles. He never had a free hand, and he never enjoyed the hearty
support of any one section of his countrymen.
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