Pandulf’s mission to Poitou has a significance beyond its actual results. It indicates how large and disinterested was the view taken by him and by Honorius of what the papal overlordship of England and guardianship of its young King should involve. The foreign churchman who for two years and a half had been, alike in right and in fact, supreme head of the government in England had no sooner laid down his office there than he--of course with the sanction of the Pope, whose chamberlain he still remained--placed himself at the disposal of the English ministers of State, so lately his subordinates, and accepted from them a diplomatic commission which could bring no advantage of any kind either to himself or to the Roman See, solely for the purpose of helping them and their young sovereign out of a difficulty. On the other hand, the fact that these ministers, when no longer under any necessity of admitting him to a share in their counsels, were so ready to make use of his help and placed in him so much confidence as is implied in the latitude of the powers with which they entrusted him on this occasion, is a strong testimony to the estimation in which their previous relations with him had led them to hold his character, his abilities, and his devotion to the welfare of King and kingdom. As under William the Marshal, so under Pandulf, we cannot tell whether the inner working of the royal Council had been really as harmonious as its outward action appears, nor how much of its harmony, inward or outward, was due to the regent. Some indications of rivalry between certain of the King’s councillors seem to be discernible before the close of Pandulf’s rule; but so far as we can see, no open breach among them showed itself till some two years and a half after his controlling hand was removed.