Bitter was the disappointment and vehement the indignation of the troops, especially the sailors, and loud and deep were the curses which they hurled at the ministers whose “detestable counsel” had thwarted the aspirations and shattered the hopes of king and people alike.[473] The ministers hurried the unwilling king away to Winchester (June 11); but next day he made his way back to Portsmouth, went on board a ship with a few comrades, and crossed into the Isle of Wight, probably hoping that when he was found to have actually set forth, the sailors and the troops would compel the barons to follow, or intending to throw himself alone, if need were, upon the honour of his Aquitanian adherents. At the end of two days, however, his companions persuaded him to abandon this desperate venture, and on June 15 he landed at Studland near Wareham.[474] His first act on landing was to claim “an infinite sum of money” from the earls, barons, prelates and knights, on the ground that they “had refused to follow him over sea for the recovery of his lost heritage.”[475] In so far as this exaction fell upon the shire-levies and the country knights, it was unjust, for the majority of these were clearly in sympathy with the king, and as eager for the expedition as he was himself. But it was impossible for him, in the actual circumstances, to distinguish between the willing and the unwilling; and there can be little doubt that so far as the barons were concerned, his assertion was practically correct. The gathering of the mightiest armament that had ever been seen in England had ended, not in a vigorous effort to regain the lost dominions of England’s sovereign, but in the despatch of a handful of knights under the earl of Salisbury to reinforce the garrison of La Rochelle.[476] That it had so ended was directly owing to the action of the primate and the Marshal. But it would obviously have been impossible for two men, however influential, to prevail against the king, if his policy had been supported by the whole body of the baronage on the spot and in arms. The most probable explanation of the matter is that Hubert and William knew the majority of the barons to be, at best, half-hearted in the cause. Whether, in a military and political point of view, the moment was really favourable or unfavourable for the undertaking which John contemplated and from which they shrank, is a question on which speculation is useless. All we can say is that if an opportunity was thrown away, the responsibility for its rejection does not lie upon John. [Sidenote: 1205–1206]