1 to the leopard. He had as yet but little of that bitter experience which made him afterwards so great a king, and de Montfort, if he ever cherished the idea of raising him into his fathers place, must have soon found it impracticable. Deprived of one possible advocate at Court, Simon soon lost the other too; for King Richard, obeying the repeated injunctions of the Pope, departed for Germany. Henry was left to his own devices. CHAP. VIII. 1260 position. He employed his time during the autumn of 1260 Henry in strengthening the Tower of London, whence he recovers his expected to command the city. He had already compelled all the citizens, from the age of twelve upwards, to swear a renewed allegiance to him; and, growing confident in his own strength and the prospect of papal support, he began, according to the confession of his own partisans, to issue ordinances contrary to the spirit of the Provisions.' He even ventured to summon Parliament to meet in the Tower, but this the barons refused to do, demanding that they should meet in the usual place of assembly at Westminster.2 Hugh Bigod, the justiciar ap- Change of justiciars. pointed by the barons in 1258, had resigned early in 1260, for what reason, unless it were a sense of failure in a task for which a Bigod was hardly likely to be fitted, we do not know. Hugh Despenser, a staunch supporter of de Montfort, had been appointed in his place, and this shows the influence exerted by the earl up to the return of Henry from France. But 1 T. Wykes 125. 2 On what occasion this was does not appear, but it seems to have been in the spring of 1261, after Henry had fortified the Tower (Ann. Dunst, 217). Dr. Pauli thinks it was at the autumn Parliament of 1260. CHAP. VIII. 1260 Feeling baronial govern ment. now things were changed. An uneasy feeling was abroad. It was evident that the Provisions were no longer valid, that the baronial Government, if not against the already extinct, was tottering to its fall. Their errors had roused fresh resistance. Several towns had refused to admit the itinerant justices appointed by the barons, since their visit had been repeated after an interval less than that ordained in the Provisions of 1259. Another authority tells us that the justices themselves were subjected to vexatious interference on the part of the barons, probably those discontented nobles through whose territories they passed, not those who held the reins of power in London. Henry takes ad vantage of All this confusion produced a feeling of hostility to the baronial régime. Meanwhile, like a great this feeling. undertone of misery, the scarcity of food continued throughout England. Things were probably not worse than they were before 1258, but the fact that they were not much better was enough to condemn a Government which had entered into power with such pretensions. The king had openly announced, as far back as February 1260, that as the barons had not kept their share of the pact, he was not bound to keep his; yet he thought it worth while to allay anxiety by issuing an edict commanding the seizure of all who spread abroad reports that he intended arbitrarily to alter the law of the land. Meanwhile he appeared to be making strenuous efforts to settle his private disputes with the Earl of Leicester. was certainly to his interest to remove all causes of complaint that might strengthen Simons position. In E. g. Hereford.-Nic. Trivet 248: Worcester.-Ann. Wig. 446. It CHAP. VIII. 1261 Arrange private differences between and Earl Simon attempted. March 1261 it was agreed between the king and the earl and countess to submit them to the arbitration of the King of France. Louis was besought to undertake the office; the Queen of France, Henrys ment of sister-in-law, strove to bring about a peaceable solution; King Richard wrote to his brother, bidding him abide by the decision, whatever it might be. But Louis showed no great inclination to involve himself in so delicate a matter; he saw too that it was not a mere private quarrel to be settled, and therefore in April he declined to arbitrate. Thereupon Queen Margaret took it up, according to previous engagement. But a little later, apparently in case the queen too, after nearer examination, should find the claims of the opposing parties irreconcileable, a court of arbitration was appointed, to consist of four members, two chosen by each disputant, with two mediators in addition. Their verdict was to be given by the end of September 1261. The part still taken by the King and Queen of France is obscure, but seems to have been limited at this time to a general supervision. So for a time the question remained undecided, in itself unimportant, but, taken in connexion with existing circumstances, a constant source of irritation. All this while however Henry had been preparing in secret for a great blow. A second time, as fiveand-forty years before, the power of the papacy was called in to absolve the king from his most solemn. promises, and by an unwarrantable interference, The arbitrators were, for the king, P. Basset and J. Mansel-for the earl, the Bishop of Worcester and P. de Montfort; the mediators were Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, and P. Chamberiain. Henry and the Pope. VIII. 1261 against which the national sense revolted, again to revivify those principles which it intended to destroy. The papal absolution, for which Henry had been The papal absolution waiting, was made out on April 13, 1261; but he was granted, not ready to use it yet. He prepared for the coup d'état by occupying Windsor,' and by issuing orders to prevent Leicester from introducing soldiers by the Cinque Ports. At last, all being ready, he went to Dover, which he seems to have occupied without any difficulty, turned out Hugh Bigod from the fortress, as he had already ousted him from the Tower, doubtless with his consent; and, having probably met the papal messengers at Dover, summoned a Parliament at Winchester at the regular time, and on June 14 produced the absolution before the assembled magnates. By this document the Pope released the king from all his promises, declaring the Provisions to be null and void, and the obligation invalid, since the sanctity of an oath, which ought to strengthen good faith and truth, must not become the stronghold of wickedness and treachery.' and published. Effect of the absolu- blow forestalled opposition. tion. The effect was immense; the suddenness of the At the same Parliament the king deposed Hugh Despenser, as being the nominee of his opponents, and made Philip Basset justiciar. The great seal was given to Walter de Merton. He then retreated hastily to his stronghold of the Tower, thence to crush his enemies in safety. He first attempted to recover the castles, in which however he was hindered, at any rate in one instance, by the opposition of Hugh Bigod, who refused to He was there during the latter part of March, having been in the Tower till March 14.-Fæd. i. 405 seq. CHAP. VIII. 1260 Effect of the papal absolution. give up Scarborough and other places except by command of Parliament, although he had already given up Dover and the Tower. His refusal is a good instance of the vacillating position taken up by so many of the barons at this time, it being so worded as to save his conscience, but to leave open the chance of surrendering, if the king were supported by the least parliamentary authority. The baronial sheriffs were removed, and with the appointment of new men in their places the royal authority was restored, at least nominally, to its former strength. Strenuous Resistance efforts were however made against this last and most important measure. The baronial party, though scattered and disunited, resisted everywhere the intrusion of the new officials, and appointed sheriffs of their own, whom they called Wardens of the Counties. To mitigate this opposition the king issued concilia- and tory proclamations, declaring that he was doing no- attempts at thing nor would do anything against the law of the tion. land, and laying all the blame of recent disturbances on the barons, whose dissensions, he said, had rendered necessary the introduction of foreign troops last year. This confession must have gone far to spoil the effect of the promises that preceded it. Still, in spite of Success of the outspoken opposition of a few scattered individ- the king. uals, and doubtless the secret anxiety of man more, the kings success must have seemed at the time complete. The universal acquiescence, though it cannot justify the means he took to shake off the yoke, shows how much public opinion had changed in the 1 Fœd. i. 409. H. Bigod gave up the castles in the autumn of this year. Roy. Letters ii. 222, note. 2 Fœd. i. 408. concilia |