Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature, elated by the favor which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with the legantine commission, could not submit to an equality with the bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty.[*] The king, informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles, that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself was better acquainted with the king's secret intentions.[**] He proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with an invidious ostentation.

He never travelled without a strong guard of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious tribe, with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights were proud of being admitted into his train his retinue wore the aspect of royal magnificence; and when in his progress through the kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were sufficient to devour in one night the revenue of several years.[***] [* Hoveden, p.665.Knyghton, p.

2403.] [** W.Heming.p 528,] [*** Hoveden, p.680.Benedict.Abbas, p.

626, 700.

Brompton, p.