much was done to transfer the castles to loyal hands.
Randolph himself surrendered Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth.

Comparative peace having been restored, and the judicial bench purged
of feudal partisans, private persons ventured to complain of outrageous
acts of "novel disseisin", or unlawful appropriation of men's lands. In
the spring of 1224 the king's justices went throughout the country,
hearing and deciding pleas of this sort. Sixteen acts of novel
disseisin were proved against Falkes de Breaute. Despite all the
efforts of Langton and Hubert, that able adventurer, though stripped of
some of his castles, fully maintained the position which he first
acquired in the service of John. He was not the man to put up tamely
with the piecemeal destruction of his power by legal process, and,
backed up secretly by the feudal leaders, resolved to take the law into
his own hands. One of the most active of the judges in hearing
complaints against him was Henry of Braybrook. Falkes bade his brother,
William de Breaute fall upon the justice, who had been hearing suits at
Dunstable, and take him prisoner. William faithfully fulfilled his
brother's orders, and on June 17 the unlucky judge was safely shut up
in a dungeon of Bedford Castle, of which William had the custody, as
his brother's agent. So daring an outrage on the royal authority was
worse than the action of William of Albemarle four years before. Hubert
and the archbishop immediately took strong measures to enforce the
sanctity of the law. While Langton excommunicated Falkes and his
abettors, Hubert hastily turned against the traitor the forces which
were assembling at Northampton with the object of reconquering Poitou.
Braybrook was captured on Monday. On Thursday the royal troops besieged
Bedford.

The siege lasted from June 20 to August 14. The "noble castle of
Bedford" was new, large, and fortified with an inner and outer baily,
and two strong towers. Falkes trusted that it would hold out for a year,
and had amply provided it with provisions and munitions of war. In
effect, though William de Breaute and his followers showed a gallant
spirit, it resisted the justiciar for barely two months. When called
upon to surrender the garrison answered that they would only yield at
their lord's orders, and that the more as they were not bound to the
king by homage or fealty. Nothing was left but a fight to the death. The
royalists made strenuous efforts. A new scutage, the "scutage