Maréchal_, lines 15329-32; _Hist. des ducs de Normandie, et des
rois d'Angleterre_, p. 181, and _Ann. Winchester_, p. 83.
Wykes, p. 60, and _Ann. Dunstable_, p. 48, which confirm
Wendover, are suspect by reason of other errors.

On November 2 a great council met at Bristol. Only four earls appeared,
and one of these, William of Fors, Earl of Albemarle, was a recent
convert. But the presence of eleven bishops showed that the Church had
espoused the cause of the little king, and a throng of western and
marcher magnates made a sufficient representation of the lay baronage.
The chief business was to provide for the government during the
minority. Gualo withstood the temptation to adopt the method by which
Innocent III. had ruled Sicily in the name of Frederick II. The king's
mother was too unpopular and incompetent to anticipate the part played
by Blanche of Castile during the minority of St. Louis. After the
precedents set by the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, the barons took the
matter into their own hands. Their work of selection was not an easy
one. Randolph of Chester was by far the most powerful of the royalist
lords, but his turbulence and purely personal policy, not less than his
excessive possessions and inordinate palatine jurisdictions, made him
unsuitable for the regency. Yet had he raised any sort of claim, it
would have been hardly possible to resist his pretensions.[1] Luckily,
Randolph stood aside, and his withdrawal gave the aged earl marshal the
position for which his nomination as justiciar at Gloucester had
already marked him out. The title of regent was as yet unknown, either
in England or France, but the style, "ruler of king and kingdom," which
the barons gave to the marshal, meant something more than the ordinary
position of a justiciar. William's friends had some difficulty in
persuading him to accept the office. He was over seventy years of age,
and felt it would be too great a burden. Induced at last by the legate