Note 793 — Chapter V · JOHN AND THE POPE 1210–1214

John, who in his prosperous days made almost a parade of disbelief in William’s loyalty, and delighted in straining it to the uttermost by saying and doing everything he could think of to insult and provoke William, nevertheless knew well that in moments of peril William was the one counsellor to whose disinterestedness he could safely trust, the one follower on whom he could count unreservedly, the one friend whom he could not do without. So at the close of 1212 or early in 1213 he had recalled the Marshal to his side, and proved his confidence in him by giving him back his two sons who were in England as hostages (Hist. de G. le Mar. vv. 14492–598). The bishop of Norwich had also come over from Ireland with five hundred knights and other horsemen to join the muster (R. Wendover, vol. iii. p. 245). It tells something of the success of John’s measures for the settlement of the Irish March that the simultaneous absence of the justiciar and the Marshal, at such a crisis in the king’s fortunes, appears to have been followed by no disturbance in the country which they thus left without a ruler.