much greater will be your joy when you get the better of the adversary, as, please God, you may! Then all men will say that never man of any race won such honour upon earth. Is it not worth the winning?” “By God’s sword!” swore the aged hero, “your counsel is true and good, and goes so straight to my heart that if all the world should forsake the King, save myself, know you what I would do? I would carry him on my shoulders from one land to another, and never fail him, though I had to beg my bread.” His friends applauded his resolution, and he, having now cast aside all misgivings, closed the conference with characteristic simplicity. “Now let us go to bed; and may God Who rules over all things give us His counsel and aid, as He surely does aid those who wish to do right and cleave unto loyalty.”[29] He took up his new duties without further hesitation. Under his direction letters were immediately despatched to all the sheriffs and wardens of castles throughout England, bidding them render obedience to the new King;[30] and Gualo called upon the prelates and the loyal barons to meet the King and his guardians in a council at Bristol on November 11. When the council met, it comprised the whole strength of the loyal party. Only eleven bishops indeed were present; but the statement made in a royal letter that “all the prelates”[31] of England were there was practically true nevertheless; for the two metropolitans were both out of the country, the Bishops of London, Lincoln, and Salisbury were ill, and the sees of Durham, Norwich, and Hereford were vacant. The laymen who attended were the Earls of Pembroke, Chester, Derby (or Ferrers), and Aumale, the Justiciar Hubert de Burgh, Savaric de Mauléon, the two William Brewers (father and son), Robert de Courtenay, Falkes de Bréauté, Reginald de Valtort, Walter de Lacy, Hugh and Robert de Mortimer, John of Monmouth, Walter de Beauchamp, Walter and Roger de Clifford, William Cantelupe, Matthew FitzHerbert, John Marshal, Alan Basset, Philip d’Aubigné, and John L’Estrange, besides others whose names are not recorded; and there were also some “other prelates,”--that is, abbots and priors--and knights.[32] Gualo, who as representing the overlord of King and kingdom necessarily acted as president of the council, began by causing every man present to swear fealty to the King; he then laid an interdict upon the whole of Wales “because it held with the barons,” and repeated his excommunication of the rebels and their allies, with Louis of France at their head.[33]