the recent oath about the surrender of castles, in a case where a previous oath sworn to the late King could be pleaded against it.[824] We should, however, require a more impartial authority than Falkes to make us believe that Hubert’s jealousy and self-will goaded him into an attempt to ruin his rival by a device at once so monstrous and so clumsy as that which Falkes ascribes to him. He is far more likely to have been duped into believing a story invented by some unscrupulous subordinate who hoped that it might bring promotion to himself by serving (as, no doubt, it did serve) to the attainment of an end--the surrender of Corfe--which he knew the Justiciar had at heart, but which may not have commended itself to the judgement of the Bishop of Winchester. In his capacity of personal guardian, “master,” and instructor to the young King, Bishop Peter had an assistant in Philip d’Aubigné, a man whose valour and loyalty had been proved both on land and sea, and who bore a high character alike in public and private life.[825] It seems to have been in Philip’s charge that the boy had been left while the bishop made his pilgrimage to S. James;[826] much against the will of Philip, who had taken the Cross at the beginning of the year and was anxious to fulfill his vow.[827] He started as soon as he was set free by the bishop’s return.[828] The Christian host besieged in Damietta was known to be in great straits, and many volunteers from Europe were eager to reinforce it. On 19th September Bishop Peter also took the Cross;[829] Falkes did the like about the same time; and at the close of the year or beginning of the next they were both preparing to set out, seemingly together, when they were stopped by the tidings that Damietta had been surrendered.[830] The fact that Peter contemplated such an expedition is significant. It shows that his tutorship of the young King was at an end. Falkes says that it was pronounced--seemingly by the other members of the Council under Hubert’s influence--on Peter’s return from Spain, to be at an end, on the ground that Henry was now beyond the age of pupilage.[831] The boy’s personal emancipation from his tutor’s control, however, did not imply any emancipation from wardship or tutelage in the legal sense; Henry’s school-days were over, but not his minority.