But as this nobleman was become too great to preserve an entire complaisance to Henry's humors, and to act in subserviency to his other minions, he found more advantage in cultivating his interest with the public, and in inflaming the general discontents which prevailed against the administration.

He filled every place with complaints against the infringement of the Great Charter, the acts of violence committed on the people, the combination between the pope and the king in their tyranny and extortions, Henry's neglect of his native subjects and barons; and though himself a foreigner, he was more loud than any in representing the indignity of submitting to the dominion of foreigners.
* M.Paris, p.

314.
** Ibid, p.

315.
*** Rymer, vol.i.p.

459, 513.
By his hypocritical pretensions to devotion he gained the favor of the zealots and clergy: by his seeming concern for public good he acquired the affections of the public: and besides the private friendships which he had cultivated with the barons, his animosity against the favorites created a union of interests between him and that powerful order.
A recent quarrel which broke out between Leicester and William de Valence, Henry's half brother and chief favorite, brought matters to extremity,[*] and determined the former to give full scope to his bold and unbounded ambition, which the laws and the king's authority had hitherto with difficulty restrained.