Henry's work, however, was scarcely begun when in March there came a lull in the long winter storms, and a vessel made its way across the waters of the Irish Sea. It brought grave tidings. Legates from the Pope had reached Normandy, with powers only after full submission to absolve the king; unless Henry quickly met them, all his lands would be laid under interdict. Other heavy tidings came. Evil counsellors were exciting the young king to rebellion. It was absurd, they said, to be king, and to exercise no authority in the kingdom, and the boy was willing enough to believe that since his coronation "the reign of his father had expired." All Henry's plans in Ireland were at once thrown aside. At the first break in the adverse winds he hastily set sail, and for two hundred years no English king again set foot in Ireland. The short winter's work was to end in utter confusion. The king's policy had been to set up the royal justice and power, and to break the strength of the barons by dividing and curtailing their interests. He had left them without a leader. The growing power of Strongbow had been broken; Dublin had been taken from him; the castles had all been committed to knights appointed by the king. Quarrels and rivalries soon broke out. Raymond the Fat became the recognized head of Nesta's descendants. In his enormous frame, his yellow curly hair, his high-coloured cheery face, his large gray eyes, we seethe type of the old Norse conquerors who had once harried England; we recognize it too in his carelessness as to food or clothing, his indifference to hardship, his prodigious energy, the sleepless nights spent in wandering through his camp where his resounding shouts awoke the sleeping sentinels, the enduring wrath which never forgot an enemy. Richard's uncle, Hervey of Mount Moriss, led a rival faction in the interests of Strongbow. The English garrison in Ireland was weakened by the loss of troops which Henry was compelled to carry away with him. The forces that remained, divided, thinned, discouraged, were left to confront an Irish party united in a revived hope. No sooner did rebellion break over England in the next year than the Irish with one accord rose in revolt. The treasury was exhausted, and there was no payment for the troops. A doubtful campaign went on in which the English, attacked now by the Ostmen of the towns, now by the Irish, fought with very varying success, but with prodigies of valour. They were reckless of danger, heedless of the common safeguards of military precaution. When Henry heard of Raymond's daring capture of Limerick in 1176, and then of his retreat, he made one of his pithy "Great was the courage in attacking it, and yet greater in the subduing of it, but the only wisdom that was shown was in its desertion."