II - 



niuriage, clandestine or not, of a princess of tho 



vul with a foreigner ili>l 



iotr oonMnt had not been Hint H. 

 marriage one moro uotablu instance uf the king's p.i 

 ignore ; and tho clergy professed to bo soandaliacd ut t i.. 

 ." death of bar husband, bad vowod 

 ' 1 hud betakun herself to a convent an a rdi- 

 giause. On > iiu storm off WIT Mont- 



. tttrong personal applications, and, 

 UHO of hii money, obtained the 



Pope's oonHont to B> oamo back, was 



i with great juy by tho king, ami in \-'^'J was created 



Karl ut' I.' i'-estor in his own right. Then came. di~ grace, for 



reasons upon which it in diiliuult to ^ i i. there 



oanin at tho present day to hare been BO little reason that it in 



.\arrantablo to attrilmtc tin- di -grace to the caprice of tho 



king. Simon do Montfort left tho country, and continued 



to reside- abroad and a useful 



one. In- had learned during his short i-xperiene,- of jioiitical lit'.', 



namely, tlmi he should not put lun trust in princes. Ho 



:rgot that lesson, and the fact that, he had to learn it 



iderahly the ties which bound him to tho king, 



though it does not appear to have diminished hU sense of tho 



:d duty ho owed him. Thus wo find him len<i 

 sword -ho "whom tho Gascons feared as the lightning" to 

 Henry during tho short and inglorious campaign which that king 

 made against Louis IX. (Saint Louis) in 1242, and in tho course 

 of which Do Montfort, by his own prowess, saved Henry from 

 being tnken prisoner. 



For six years after this the Earl of Leicester lived almost all 

 his time abroad. To him, as to the fittest man, was committed 

 the government of Gascouy, and tho arduous task of fighting 

 and subduing tho professional rebels who dwelt there. In spite 

 of gross neglect on Henry's part, in spite of lack of money and 

 men, tho earl succeeded in breaking the heads and tho spirit of 

 tho Gascons ; and when he had recovered the province for 

 Henry, and laid it once more at his feet, it was only to be re- 

 warded with charges of dishonesty and malversation in his office 

 as seneschal, or governor. De Montfort had obliged tho king 

 too much, served him too well, and the king resolved therefore to 

 crush him and his claims to gratitude together. But for the 

 unanimous voice of the barons against the step, the earl would 

 have been sent to the Tower, and probably thence to his death ; 

 but Henry, thwarted in this, abused the carl before the whole 

 court for his misconduct. Do Montfort replied by reminding 

 tho king of his great services, and of the broken promises with 

 which they had been requited. 



" I will never keep promises made to a traitor," said tho king. 

 Whereupon De Montfort, unable to control himself, gave him thc> 

 lie, and told him that but for his royalty he should not have 

 lived to repeat tho word. " Who can believe that you are a 

 Christian ?" he continued. " Have you ever confessed ?" 



" Certainly," replied Henry. 



" To what end have you done so, since you have neither re- 

 pented nor made amends ?" 



" I never repented of anything so much," returned the king, 

 " as of suffering you to set a foot in England, or to hold land or 

 honour in the realm." 



Thus a great gulf was fixed between Henry and his powerful 

 subject, a gulf which, as will be seen, could not bo bridged over 

 during their respective lives. De Montfort went his way and 

 Henry went another, and the former waited for an opportunity 

 to settle his accounts with his debtor. Something has been said 

 of tho way in which Henry went. Read what an eminent 

 writer and reviewer ( ' for January, 1866) says 



of it: "He aimed at making the crown virtually hide; 

 of the barons. The sons of tho men who had extorted the Great 

 Charter were told that it was their business to find money for 

 every rash enterprise which the interests of the king's Conti- 

 rolations and advisers might suggest ; but that they must 

 not presume to demand tho resignation of one officer of state, or 

 to murmur if the most important the realm, . 



.::'es in the state, -,v< r< COD alien*. 



In all this his connection with Loui M brother-in-law ho 



became, was certainly a misfortune to him. In France the royal 

 power had dtiring the last fifty years been steadily on the ad- 

 vance ; in Fxiplanc' i f . had as steadily receded ; and Henry was 



ever bearing from the other ride of the Channel maxims of 

 government and idea* of royal authority which were utterly in- 

 applicable to the actual statu of bin own kingdom." 



Tho htraiU to which thin policy, vehenwnUy opposed as it WM 

 by the , n 'ht the king ha been partially 



having to ratify the Great Charter before be could get a supply, 

 the barons oame armed, and with armed follower Simon de 

 rt wan the guiding pint among them, and hie tnflnmv* 

 waa all powerful. Actii. nggeetioM, they rtnejienrtert. 



to prevknu requirement*, that toe government of 

 gdom should be entrusted to a council of twcnty-four 

 baron !, who should continue to govern until the flagrant abas** 

 which had crept in should have been reformed i and Henry, 

 unable to say " No" with effect, was obliged to listen while th< 

 barons fixed the llth of June (1258) at Oxford for the frnvt and 

 place of a meeting at which arrangements should be made for 

 carrying this resolution into effect In tho interim De Mtmtfurt 

 and his friends seized the Cinque Ports (Dover, Hastings, Bytbe, 

 Romnoy, and Sandwich), as a precaution against the king's 

 foreign friends ; and when t f June oame they ap- 



peared at Oxford in arms, as their fathers had appeared at Run- 

 nymedo when they presented the Great Chatter for mgnarmr 



This council, for it was not a parliament, in the modern 

 acceptation of that word has been called "tho mad parliament*" 

 for no other reason that one can discover ^y beoanse tho 

 measures agreed to by the members were of a more revolu- 

 tionary and "thorough" character than were nsnally debated 

 in such assemblies. Henry was obliged to submit, and the 

 barons proceeded to draw up their resolutions, called the Pro- 

 visions of Oxford, to the observance of which they required the 

 oath of every lord. By these provision* it was declared that . 

 four knights from each county should attend the next parliament 

 in order to represent grievances ; that there should be three 

 sessions of the parliament in a year; that the election of shcriffti 

 (officers having much moro power then than now) should bo 

 annual, and by the votes of the freeholders ; that the power of 

 the sheriffs should be curtailed ; that nc new forests should bo 

 made ; that the revenues of the counties should not be fanned ; 

 and last, not least, that no foreigner should be guardian of any 

 English ward, or be allowed to hold any English castles. It was 

 also arranged, as previously determined, that a council of twenty- 

 four barons, with the Earl of Leicester at their head, should take 

 upon themselves temporarily the government of the kingdom. 

 The royal power was completely subverted. 



Had the barons only chosen to act unitedly, and with a single 

 eye to what they had undertaken, they would have had the 

 popular feeling wholly with them, and would have been the 

 means of conferring a lasting benefit on their country. But 

 tho old divisions sprung up again, the old jealousies and tho old 

 hatreds were revived, and tho cause which the barons had in 

 hand was well-nigh lost on the rock on which the friendship of 

 the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester split Instead of carrying 

 out the much needed reforms, the barons wasted the precious 

 time in striving, after the old fashion, which should be tho 

 greater. The king was unkinged, and tho twenty-four kings 

 who proposed to reign in his stead could not arrange how they 

 should do so. De Montfort was disliked because he was a 

 foreigner, and because he was too clever for his companion-, 

 though as regards his alien origin he set a good example to 

 oilier aliens by being the first to give up the English castles 

 which hod been committed to his care. Unable to settle matters 

 with the other lords, ho threw up in disgust and went abroad. 



In his absence things grew worse. Little was done by the 

 council of government after the first six months, and the people 

 began to tire of them and to pity the sorry plight to which 

 Henry was reduced. After three years tho king was so strong 

 in friends that ho determined to resume his authority, and the 

 barons, deprived of the Earl of Leicester's influence and ability, 

 were without tho means of thwarting him. The Pope, too, was 

 induced to annul the Provisions of Oxford, or rather he released 

 from the obligation of their oaths all who had sworn to respect 

 them ; and, armed with those powers, Henry, in the early part 

 -', resumed his authority by means of a sort of coup df 



Simon de Montfort refused to accept the terms offered by tin- 

 king when 1; :o power, and aoeopUxl by the majority 

 of the barons. His rival, the Earl of Gloucester, having died 



