some means to be revenged upon the King for the insult which Henry had put
upon him. Many schemes had presented themselves to his shrewd and cunning
mind, but so far all had been rejected as unworthy of the terrible
satisfaction which his wounded pride demanded.

His fancies had, for the most part, revolved about the unsettled political
conditions of Henry's reign, for from these he felt he might wrest that
opportunity which could be turned to his own personal uses and to the harm,
and possibly the undoing, of the King.

For years an inmate of the palace, and often a listener in the armory when
the King played at sword with his friends and favorites, De Vac had heard
much which passed between Henry III and his intimates that could well be
turned to the King's harm by a shrewd and resourceful enemy.

With all England, he knew the utter contempt in which Henry held the terms
of the Magna Charta which he so often violated along with his kingly oath
to maintain it. But what all England did not know, De Vac had gleaned from
scraps of conversation dropped in the armory: that Henry was even now
negotiating with the leaders of foreign mercenaries, and with Louis IX of
France, for a sufficient force of knights and men-at-arms to wage a
relentless war upon his own barons that he might effectively put a stop to
all future interference by them with the royal prerogative of the
Plantagenets to misrule England.

If he could but learn the details of this plan, thought De Vac: the point
of landing of the foreign troops; their numbers; the first point of
attack. Ah, would it not be sweet revenge indeed to balk the King in this
venture so dear to his heart !