Two influences, however, turned the scale against this overwhelming preponderance of treachery and force--Henry’s wonderful energy, which his contemporaries called supernatural good luck, and the faithfulness of the English people, who, now, when the crucial test was applied to them, amply repaid the many years of culture spent upon them. Henry had been taken by surprise by the general onset; and, unwilling to believe in the ingratitude of his boys, he at first was slow to move against them; but he showed extraordinary promptness when he saw the state of affairs and had made up his mind how to act. Having put Lewis VII. to ignominious flight at Conches, he rushed down upon Dol, in Brittany, where he captured the Earl of Chester and the chief Breton and Angevin rebels; and during the autumn of 1173, before the worst news from England arrived, he had captured one after the other the nests of rebellion in Maine. At Christmas he concluded a three months’ truce with Lewis and undertook the pacification of Poictou, which employed him until the next summer, fretting and chafing against the detention which kept him away from England. [Sidenote: War in England. ] [Sidenote: Capture of William the Lion. ] In England matters had gone on more slowly, owing to the unprepared state of the ministry and the general feeling of apprehension and mistrust. There, however, Henry had some men on whom he could depend: Richard de Lucy, the justiciar; Ranulf Glanvill, the great lawyer, who was rising into the first rank as a minister; Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, the king’s uncle; the Earl of Arundel, husband of Queen Adeliza, widow of Henry I., and others connected with the royal house. These men had insufficient forces at their disposal, and were at first unable to decide whether the Scots in the North, or the Earl of Leicester in the East, or the midland revolt under Earl Ferrers, was the most formidable. At last, having made up their minds to make a truce with the Scots, they moved upon Norfolk, and defeated the earls in October, at Fornham St. Geneviève. There they took prisoners the Earl of Leicester and his wife, the great Lady Petronilla, whose comprehensive soul embodied all the spite and arrogance and vindictiveness of the oligarchy of the Conquest. She, as heiress of Grantmesnil, had brought a great inheritance to her husband, the degenerate heir of the faithful Beaumonts; for the Leicester Beaumonts were the only house which since the Conquest had been uniformly faithful to the Conqueror and his heirs. This great success enabled Henry to remain in Poictou during the winter and spring of 1174, and allowed the ministers to concentrate their forces against the Scots. The people rose against the feudal party, and a brisk struggle was kept up in the interior of the country until the summer. William the Lion spent his time in securing the border castles, seeking his own ends, instead of pressing southwards, and so doing his part to overturn