We find, however, in the list of castles held by Hubert at his fall in 1232 only four out of the seven which he had held in 1223: the Tower, Dover, Rochester, and Canterbury.[954] The first seems never to have been taken from him.[955] Rochester was re-committed to him on 26th March, 1225,[956] and Dover not much later, perhaps even earlier.[957] The delivery of Canterbury to the Archbishop may never have been enforced; but it is equally possible that Hubert may not have regained the custody of this castle till after Stephen’s death, in 1228.[958] This evidence, though not sufficient to determine precisely how much of truth or of error is contained either in Falkes’s assertion or in Ralf’s, does suffice to show that neither the baron’s version of the matter nor the chronicler’s is altogether exact. [Sidenote: 1224] Some at least of the deprived castellans, however, who had probably hoped for speedy re-instatement, were disappointed at not getting it,[959] and not less disappointed at the failure of the attempt to oust Hubert from the justiciarship. The nobler spirits among the malcontents seem to have fallen back, almost immediately after the surrender at Northampton, upon a more pacific and legitimate expedient for curbing his masterfulness and guarding themselves against the danger of government by “unjust laws.” On the octave of Epiphany, when the court reassembled in London, the King “was requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other magnates to confirm the liberties and free customs for which war had been waged against his father.”[960] The King’s _quasi_-majority afforded an obvious occasion for such a request. The Great Charter had been twice renewed in his name, but at a time when he was too young to understand the responsibilities to which it pledged him. Now that he was recognized as “a man in wisdom and understanding,” personally answerable for “the disposition of his realm,” he might fairly be asked to grant a new confirmation of the Charter, which those who asked for it doubtless hoped would be an end of all strife. It was only natural that on this matter Stephen de Langton should be spokesman; and he spoke urgently, pleading that the King “could not evade doing this, since at the departure of Louis he and all the nobility of the realm with him had sworn that they would all observe, and cause to be observed by all others, the liberties written down aforetime.” William Brewer took upon himself to answer for the King: “The liberties which ye ask for ought rightly not to be observed, because they were extorted by violence.” “William,” exclaimed the Archbishop, “if you loved the King, you would not thus stand in the way of the peace of his realm.” Then, says the chronicler, “the King, seeing the Archbishop moved to anger, said: ‘These liberties we have all sworn, and what we have sworn we are all bound to observe.’”[961]