The last years of King Inge's reign were embittered by his strained relation to Earl Haakon. The latter, feeling his superiority to Inge in all the qualities that grace a king, could not reconcile himself to his subordinate position. He began intriguing behind his brother's back, and privately sounded the sentiments of the prominent peasants and chiefs, in regard to his pretensions. From many he received a favorable answer, and the plot was in a fair way to succeed, when it was unexpectedly discovered by the king. Inge, who had had perfect confidence in his older brother, was more shocked than angered by the proof of his treachery. He summoned all his men to a house-_thing_ and called upon them to stand by him, declaring that he would tolerate no other king in the land, as long as he was alive. This speech won general approval and compelled Haakon henceforth to weave his plots with greater secrecy. Whether he was the instigator of the attempt upon the king's life, which was made a year later, is not known, but that either he or his wife Christina was in some way implicated in it, is evident from the king's unwillingness to have the would-be assassin tried or punished. When his brother, Skule Baardsson, urged him to make an example of the wretch, he promised to have the matter investigated, to exile the criminal, etc., but as nothing was done, Skule lost his patience and killed him on his own responsibility. It was, on the whole, a laudable spirit on Inge's part which impelled him to avoid an open rupture with Earl Haakon, even at the cost of personal sacrifice. He knew the horrors of civil war and would not take the responsibility of precipitating a breach of the peace, as long as it was in his power to prevent it. The fact that his health was poor, and that there was a chance that Haakon might succeed him, may also have disinclined him to discredit the latter in the eyes of the people. Among Haakon's partisans was Archbishop Thore, to whose intervention it was chiefly due that the king and the earl in 1212 made a compact, in accordance with which illegitimate children were to be excluded from the succession, and the one of the brothers who survived the other should inherit the throne. This agreement, which was proclaimed at Oere-_thing_, and sanctioned by the bishops and the magnates of the land, was chiefly aimed against the young prince, Haakon Haakonsson, who, though a direct descendant in the male line of the old royal house, was of illegitimate birth. It excluded also, for the same reason, Inge's son Guttorm, and transferred the succession to Haakon Galen and his legitimate son, Knut. But in making this compact, they underestimated the strength of the sentiment which bound Sverre's veterans to the boy Haakon. One of them, Helge Hvasse, who was in the habit of going frequently to see the prince, and playing with him, grew very wroth when he heard of the agreement. When Haakon ran up to him to have his usual