He was old – few men passed their eightieth birthdays – and he should be grateful for a long life, during which he had been able – and he would not have been the honest man he was if he had denied this – to serve his country in a manner which had preserved her from disaster.He could look back over the last four years since the young King had come to the throne and congratulate himself that England was well on the road to recovery from that dreadful malaise which had all but killed her and handed over her useless corpse to the French.There was order in the land. How the people responded to a strong hand! It had ever been so. Laws and order under pain of death and mutilation had always been the answer; and if it was administered with justice the people were grateful. That was what John had failed to see, for he had offered the punishments without consideration of whether they were deserved. Praise God, England was settled down to peace; there had been a four years’ truce with the French and he and the Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, would see that it was renewed.
