This was Henry's greatest triumph: the danger of feudal anarchy had once more assailed him, and he had beaten it down with such a firm hand that England was never troubled again with a purely selfish and anarchic baronial rising for more than two centuries. But this victory did not win the king a quiet and glorious end to his reign. His wicked and ungrateful sons were to be the bane of his elder years. [Sidenote: =Prosperity and Legislation.--Itinerant justices.--The fyrd.=] The effect of the blow that he had dealt his disloyal subjects lasted about eight years, a period of quiet and prosperity on both sides of the Channel, during which Henry passed many excellent laws, and more especially dealt with the administration of justice, arranging permanent circuits for the itinerant justices who sat in the county courts to hold the assizes. He also issued regulations for the uniform arming and mustering of the shire-levies, the old English fyrd which had served him so well against the rebels in 1173. Abroad he was universally recognized as the greatest king of the West. He was chosen as the fairest arbitrator in several disputes between contemporary princes--even by the distant Kings of Spain. He married his daughters to the Kings of Castile and Sicily and the great Duke of Saxony, the chief vassal of the German crown. To each of his sons he promised a great inheritance: Henry was to have England, Normandy, and Anjou; Richard was to take his mother's portion in Aquitaine; Geoffrey was already provided for with his wife's duchy of Brittany: John, the youngest son, was to be King of Ireland, and the Irish chiefs were made to do homage to him. [Sidenote: =Second rebellion of Henry and Geoffrey.=] All this prosperity lasted till 1183, when Henry was fifty-two, and his four sons respectively twenty-eight, twenty-six, twenty-four, and sixteen. Tired of waiting any longer for his inheritance, and forgetful of the warning that he had received in 1174, Henry the younger once more took arms against his father: his aider and abettor was the new King of France, Philip Augustus, the son of Lewis VII., as bitter an enemy of the Angevin house as his predecessor had been. Henry also persuaded his brother Geoffrey to bring in the Bretons to his aid. Richard and John, the king's second and fourth sons, were for the time being faithful to their father; indeed, the actual _casus belli_, which Henry the younger published as his justification, was that the king had unfairly favoured Richard against him. This time the fighting was all on the continent; the English baronage were too much cowed to stir.