352 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



in July of 1262, lie returned secretly from his voluntary exile 

 in October following, and immediately assumed the leadership 

 of the barons' party. Patiently, artfully, he laboured to re- 

 organise their ranks, and he appealed at the same moment to 

 their patriotism and their pride when he showed them that the 

 Provisions of Oxford were as important to the nation as the 

 Great Charter itself; and when he pointed out that their de- 

 liberate act- had been ostentatiously set aside by a foreign 

 bishop whose authority in such matters they could not possibly 

 recognise. Under Leicester's skilful guidance the barons re- 

 united as one man, and demanded in the spring of 1263 a 

 ratification of the Provisions. Henry refused, the barons drew 

 the sword, and England was once more the scene of domestic 

 piolence and civil war. But the barons had it all their own 

 way. Combining their forces with those of Llewellyn, Prince 

 of Wales, they carried all before them, captured the royal castles, 

 imprisoned the obnoxious aliens who were in posts of authority, 

 and laid that part of the country which was devoted to the king 

 under heavy contributions. London opened its gates, and 

 received them with bells ringing and with flags flying, while the 

 king, who had retired to the Tower, was compelled to be a 

 witness of their triumph. There was no resisting them, and at 

 a Parliament, holden in September, 1263, the Provisions of 

 Oxford were solemnly confirmed by the king, and by Edward, 

 the crown prince (afterwards Edward I.). 



In a few weeks only all De Montfort's work had to be done 

 over again. Henry ignored his own solemn act so soon as the 

 barons' army had dispersed, and by the autumn chaos was come 

 again in English politics. It was decided to refer the questions 

 at issue to the arbitration of Louis IX., " a king, a hero, and 

 a man," as Gibbon said of him, and at Amiens, in January, 

 1264, Louis's award was given absolutely in favour of the king. 

 The barons, who had been somehow or other inadequately repre- 

 sented before the French king, were astounded, but they offered 

 to bow to the decision if only the objectionable claim to thrust 

 foreigners into English honours were withdrawn. This was 

 refused, and war once more broke out. 



After the signal victory which De Montfort won at Lewes when 

 he captured both the king and Prince Edward, the earl was com- 

 pletely master of the position. He summoned the Grand Council, 

 supplemented by four knights chosen by each county, to meet him 

 on the 23rd of June, and when they met they conferred despotic 

 power upon him, until the differences between Henry and the 

 barons, which were again to be submitted to French arbitration 

 (the alien question excepted), should be settled. Arrangements 

 were in progress for the new arbitration when the Pope inter- 

 fered, excommunicated the Earl of Leicester and the barons, 

 and declared Henry free to do as ho liked. 



The declaration must have sounded rather like a mockery to 

 the king, who was a close prisoner to his own subjects, and it 

 served only to show De Montfort that he must go on steadily, 

 knowing that he had nothing to hope for short of success. He 

 did what in him lay towards doing justice to those under him 

 who were most oppressed by the prevailing system. He tried 

 to free the Anglican Church from the tyrannical authority which 

 the Roman Church arrogated to have over her, and he tried to 

 let the voice of all those who were obliged to contribute towards 

 the burdens of the state, heard in the councils where their 

 political fate was decided. Not merely because he wanted their 

 help, but because he deemed they were entitled to them as of 

 right, he sent summonses to the chosen of the counties, to 

 the chosen of towns, and to the chosen of the inferior clergy, 

 to meet him in Parliament assembled. As the exponent of the 

 popular will he could do no less, and he acted as he did out of 

 conviction that he ought to do so. 



On the 12th of December, 1264, the writs went out, directed in 

 the king's name, to the barons and prelates as heretofore, to 

 an extra number of abbots, to the deans of cathedrals, and to 

 every county and every important town. Each county and each 

 town addressed sent up two representatives apiece to the Grand 

 Council of the realm, and their members, in common with the 

 lords of Parliament, settled the affairs of the nation. For him- 

 self, De Montfort took nothing; he even allowed another, an 

 Englishman, to be made Grand Justiciary, or chief officer of 

 the kingdom, by a Parliament of his own creation. 



What was the upshot of it all ? Simply this. The barons, 

 weakened by their own mutual jealousies and distrusts, and by 

 the glittering promises of the king, fell away like water from 



their best friend, and left De Montfort to fight out their quarrel, 

 not only alone, but against their own opposition. The final 

 result of it all was, that when Simon de Montfort, with his eldest 

 son, and a few good men and true who remained to him, saw 

 the army of Prince Edward approach his army at Evesham, 

 there was nothing for it but to fight to the death against men 

 whom he himself had trained to discipline and war. " May 

 God have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are Prince Edward's," 

 exclaimed the earl as he saw the enemy advancing against him 

 in force, and he entered on the battle with a full conviction that 

 it was his last. 



He died, with his eldest son, Lord Basset, Lord Despencer, 

 and many more, bravely fighting in defence of those principles 

 which he had advocated all his political life. His example and 

 his statesmanship survived him, and we must recognise in him 

 the founder of that system of Parliamentary government which 

 it has been our pride and our privilege to preserve to the present 

 hour. We will finish this article in the words of the Ediiiburgli 

 reviewer, to whose essay we have already referred: " And when 

 the full survey is taken we shall not forget what is due to the 

 statesman who first struck the key-note of constitutional govern- 

 ment, and showed that there was more both of wisdom and of 

 strength in a confiding appeal to a free people, than in the coer- 

 cive despotism of the first Plantagenets. We shall remember, 

 too, that he applied his principles with a breadth of view and 

 an evenness of hand too rare in later times to the Church as 

 well as to the State, and that almost alone of feudal statesmen 

 he perceived that the just privileges of a national clergy might 

 become, not the chronic difficulty of the State, but her surest 

 and least perishable safeguard. Lastly, we shall bear in mind 

 that, over the coarse ignorance and impure rudeness of the old 

 feudal manners, he bore himself in calm, gentle superiority, 

 cultivated, refined, and unsullied the very model of an English 

 gentleman : so English in heart, so true to the land of his adop- 

 tion, that we almost forget, as wo think of him, the parentage 

 that is implied in the name of Simon do Montfort." 



SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS IN THE LIFE AND EEIGN OF HENKT III. 



Henry III., the eldest son of King John, by his second con- 

 sort, Isabel of Angouleme, was the eighth king of England after 

 the Norman Conquest, and the fourth of the Plantagenet 

 Dynasty. 



