HENRY, the eldest son of John, was a child under ten years of age at the time of his father's death, but his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, brought him to Gloucester and got him crowned by Gualo, who had always acted as a friend of the family. The coronation, which took place on the 28th of October, 1216, was very indifferently got up, for the crown had not come from the Wash, where it had been lying in soak ever since John's unfortunate expedition across the water from Wisbeach. Gualo therefore took a ring from his finger, and put it on the young king's head, as a substitute for the missing diadem. The coronation party consisted of three earls, three bishops, and four barons, with a sprinkling of abbots and priors, comprising altogether a retinue of about thirty individuals. The clergy of Westminster and Canterbury complained bitterly of the ceremony having been "scamped," by which their rights had been invaded, or, in other words, by which they had been done out of their perquisites. The first coronation was therefore treated as a mere rehearsal, and a more regular performance afterwards took place, with new machinery, dresses, decorations, and all the usual properties. On the 11th of the following November, Pembroke was appointed _rector Regis et Regni_--ruler of the king and kingdom--so that Henry the Third was sovereign _de jure_ with a _de facto_ viceroy over him. This arrangement was made at a great council held at Bristol, where Magna Charta was revised with a view to the publication of a new and improved edition. Louis, on hearing of John's death, puffed himself up with a certainty of success, but he only realised the old fable of the French frog and the British bull; for, becoming inflated with pride, he was not long in bursting like an empty bubble.