Thus, then, early in 1173 a head was provided for a great confederation of French lords and English barons, actively aided by Lewis of France, Philip of Flanders, the Counts of Champagne and the King of Scots, William the Lion, who had succeeded Malcolm IV. in 1165. The younger Henry, liberal in promises, proposed to reward with vast English estates the men who were to help in renewing the glories of the Conquest. And the great English earls, Chester, Leicester, and Norfolk, were bent on reviving the feudal influence which Henry’s reforms had so weakened. These earls were mighty men on both sides of the Channel: the Norman quarrel could be fought in England as well as in Normandy, Anjou, and Poictou. Measures were contrived at Paris for a universal rising. And the success of the design seemed at first almost certain. Henry had a large force of Brabançon mercenaries about him, but scarcely any other force on which he could depend at all. [Sidenote: War begins.] The war began by a Flemish invasion of Normandy; then the Earl of Chester raised Brittany against the king; then the Poictevins rose in arms. From France the torch was handed to England. William the Lion, with a half-barbarian army, began a devastating march southward; the Earl of Leicester landed a great force of Flemings in Norfolk; the Earl Ferrers of Derby fortified his castles in the midland counties; old Hugh Bigot of Norfolk, who had sworn the disinheritance of Matilda in 1135, garrisoned his castles--all England was in an uproar. The old justiciar, the king’s lieutenant, Richard de Lucy, was bewildered; and the great Bishop of Durham, Hugh de Puiset, King Stephen’s nephew, began to play a double game, negotiating with the Scots, and allowing the landing of Flemish mercenaries, to be used at discretion. [Sidenote: Henry’s success. ] [Sidenote: In France.]