4b6 KCXiEIÌ OK WEXDOVEK. [A.D . 1207. clared himself of legitimate age to he released from wardship, and to take the chief management of the kingly duties. And thus the former pupil and ward of William Marshall during his life, and after his death of I'ctcr bishop of Winchester, now, by the advice of Hubert de lîurgh justiciary of Eng land, freed himself from all counsel and restraint of the said bishop and his friends, who had formerly been, as it were, his school-masters, and dismissed them all from his court and from all connection with him. At the same council too the said king annulled and cancelled the charters of the liberties of the forests in all the counties of Kngland, after they had been in practice throughout the whole of England for two years ; and as a reason for this he alleged that the charters had been granted, and the liberties written and signed, whilst he was under the care of a guardian, and had no power over his own body or his seal, and therefore as it had been an unreasonable usurpation it could no longer stanti good. On this a great murmur arose amongst the council, and all decided that the justiciary was the author of this trouble : for he afterwards became so intimate with the king that all the other councillors of the kingdom were though; nothing of. Orders were then given to the religious men and others, who wished to enjoy their liberties, to renew their charters under the new seal of the king, as they knew that he held the ohi charters to be invalid : and for this renewal a tax was levied, not according to the means of each of them, but thev were compelled to pay whatever the justiciary determined on. How the king's messengers who had hern sent into France returned, without effecting their purpose. In the same year, pope Houorius died on the eighteenth of March, and was succeeded by Gregory bishop of Ostia. In the same year about Easter, the archbishop of York, the bishop of Carlisle, and Philip tie Albency, the king's mes scngcrs, returned to Kngland from the continent. They had been sent to the nobles of those countries, who by right of old owed allegiance to the king of England ; and they had been ordered by the king to induce them by soft speeches and large promises to receive him the said king, and to acknowledge him as their natural lord, l'ut, not to prolong the account uselessly, before the king's messengers had