1236-1238

virtue of restraint. Such examples could not fail to be attended with consequences of which those who set them never dreamed, all the more because the two new orders worked harmoniously towards a common end. The Dominicans quickened the brain while the Franciscans touched the heart, and the whole nation was the better in consequence.

In 1236 Henry married Eleanor, the daughter of the Count of Provence. The immediate consequence was the arrival of her four uncles with a stream of Provençals in their train. Among these uncles William, bishop-elect of Valence, took the lead. Henry submitted his weak mind entirely to him, and distributed rank and wealth to the Provençals with as much profusion as he had distributed them to the Poitevins in the days of Peter des Roches. The barons, led now by the king's brother, Richard of Cornwall, remonstrated when they met in the Great Council, which was gradually acquiring the right of granting fresh taxes, though all reference to that right was dropped out of all editions of the Great Charter issued in the reign of Henry. For some time they granted the money which Henry continually asked for, coupling, however, with their grant the demand that Henry should confirm the Charter. The king never refused to confirm it. He had no difficulty in making promises, but he never troubled himself to keep those which he had made.

Strangely enough, Simon de Montfort, the man who was to be the chief opponent of Henry and his foreign favorites, was himself a foreigner. He was sprung from a family established in Normandy, and his father, the elder Simon de Montfort, had been the leader of a body of Crusaders from the north of France, who had poured over the south to crush a vast body of heretics, known by the name of Albigeois, from Albi, a town in which they swarmed. The elder Simon had been strict in his orthodoxy and unsparing in his cruelty to all who were unorthodox. From him the younger Simon inherited his unswerving religious zeal and his constancy of purpose. There was the same stern resolution in both, but in the younger man these qualities were coupled with a statesmanlike instinct, which was wanting to the father. Norman as he was, he had a claim to the earldom of Leicester through his grandmother. In 1236 he returned to England to be present at the king's marriage. He was at once taken into favor, and in 1238 married the king's sister, Eleanor. His marriage was received by the barons

1239-1243

and the people with a burst of indignation. It was one more instance, it was said, of Henry's preference for foreigners over his own countrymen. In 1239 Henry turned upon his brother-in-law, brought heavy charges against him, and drove him from his court. In 1240 Simon was outwardly reconciled to Henry, but he was never again able to repose confidence in one so fickle. In 1242 Henry resolved to undertake an expedition to France to recover Poitou, which had been gradually slipping out of his hands. At a Great Council held before he sailed, the barons, who had no sympathy with any attempt to recover lost possessions in France, not only rated him soundly for his folly, but, for the first time, absolutely refused to make him a grant of money. Simon told him to his face that the Frenchman was no lamb to be easily subdued. Simon's words proved true. Henry sailed for France, but in 1243 he surrendered all claims to Poitou, and returned discomfited. If he did not bring home victory he brought with him a new crowd of Poitevins, who were connected with his mother's second husband. All of them expected to receive advancement in England, and they seldom expected it in vain.

Disgusted as were the English landowners by the preference shown by the king to foreigners, the English clergy were no less disgusted by the exactions of the Pope. The claim of Innocent III. to regulate the proceedings of kings had been handed down to his successors and made them jealous of any ruler too powerful to be controlled. As the king of England was the Pope's vassal in consequence of John's surrender, he looked to him for aid against the Emperor Frederick more than to others, especially as England, enjoying internal peace more than other nations, was regarded as especially wealthy. In 1237 Pope Gregory IX. sent Cardinal Otho as his legate to demand money from the English clergy. The clergy found a leader in Robert Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln, a wise and practical reformer of clerical disorders; but though they grumbled, they could get no protection from the king, and were forced to pay. Otho left England in 1241, carrying immense sums of money with him, and the promise of the king to present three hundred Italian priests to English benefices before he presented a single Englishman. In 1243 Gregory IX. was succeeded by Innocent IV., who was even more grasping than his predecessor.

Against these evils the Great Council strove in vain to make head. It was now beginning to be known as Parliament, though

1243-1254

no alteration was yet made in its composition. In 1244 clergy and barons joined in remonstrating with the king, and some of them even talked about restraining his power by the establishment of a Justiciar and Chancellor, together with four councilors, all six to be elected by the whole of the baronage. Without the consent of the Chancellor thus chosen no administrative act could be done. The scheme was a distinct advance upon that of the barons who, in 1215, forced the Great Charter upon John. The barons had then proposed to leave the appointment of executive officials to the king, and to appoint a committee of twenty-five, who were to have nothing to do with the government of the country, but were to compel the king by force to keep the promises which he had made. In 1244 they proposed to appoint the executive officials themselves. It was the beginning of a series of changes which ultimately led to that with which we are now familiar, the appointment of ministers responsible to Parliament. It was too great an innovation to be accepted at once, especially as it was demanded by the barons alone. The clergy, who were still afraid of the disorders which might ensue if power were lodged in the hands of the barons, refused to support it, and for a time it fell to the ground. At the same time Richard of Cornwall abandoned the baronial party. But on the other hand Earl Simon was found on the side of the barons.

The clergy also had to learn by bitter experience that it was only by a close alliance with the barons that they could preserve themselves from wrong. Money was wrung from them, and the Pope, moreover, continued to present his own nominees to English. benefices. For a time even Henry made complaints, but in 1254 Innocent IV. won him over to his side by offering the crown of Sicily and Naples to his son Edmund. Henry leaped at the offer, hoping that England would bear the expense of the undertaking. England was, however, in no mood to comply. Henry had been squandering money for years. He had recently employed Earl Simon in Gascony, where Simon had put down the resistance of the nobles with a heavy hand. The Gascons complained to Henry, and Henry quarreled with Simon more bitterly than before. In 1254 Henry crossed the sea to restore order in person. To meet his expenses he borrowed a vast sum of money, and this loan, which he expected England to meet, was the only result of the expedition.

During the king's absence the queen and Earl Richard, who were left as regents, and who had to collect money as best they

1254-1258

might, gathered a Great Council, to which, for the first time, representative knights, four from each shire, were summoned. They were merely called on to report what amount of aid their constituents were willing to give, and the regents were doubtless little aware of the importance of the step which they were taking. It was only, to all appearances, an adaptation of the summons calling on the united jury to meet at St. Albans to assess the damages of the clergy in the reign of John. It might seem as if the regents had only summoned a united jury to give evidence of their constituents' readiness to grant certain sums of money. In reality the new scheme was sure to take root, because it held out a hope of getting rid of a constitutional difficulty which had hitherto proved insoluble-the difficulty, that is to say, of weakening the king's power to do evil without establishing baronial anarchy in its place. It was certain that the representatives of the freeholders in the counties would not use their influence for the destruction of order.

At the end of 1254 Henry returned to England. In 1255 a new Pope demanded more money from England. Immense sums were wrung from the clergy, who were powerless to resist Pope and king combined. Their indignation was the greater, not only because they knew the Pope's effort was to secure his political power in Italy, but also because the Papal court was known to be hopelessly corrupt. The clergy indeed were less than ever in a condition to resist the king without support. Grossetête was dead, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the queen's uncle, Boniface of Savoy, whose duty it was to maintain the rights of the Church, was a man who cared nothing for England except on account of the money he drew from it. Other bishoprics as well were held by foreigners. The result of the weakness of the clergy was that they were now ready to unite with the barons, whom they had deserted in 1244. Henry's misgovernment, in fact, had roused all classes against him, as the townsmen and the smaller landowners had been even worse treated than the greater barons. In 1257 one obstacle to reform was removed. Richard of Cornwall, the king's brother, was chosen king of the Romans by the German electors, an election which would make him Emperor as soon as he had been crowned by the Pope.

The crisis in England came in 1258, while Richard was still abroad. Though thousands were dying of starvation in conse

1258

quence of a bad harvest, Henry demanded for the Pope the monstrous sum of one-third of the revenue of all England. Then the storm burst. At a Parliament at Westminster the barons appeared in arms and demanded, first, the expulsion of all foreigners, and, secondly, the appointment of a committee of twenty-fourtwelve from the king's party and twelve from that of the baronsto reform the realm. The king unwillingly consented, and the committee was appointed. Later in the year Parliament met again at Oxford to receive the report of the new committee. The Mad Parliament, as it was afterwards called in derision, was resolved to make good its claims. The scheme of reinforcing Parliament by the election of knights of the shire had indeed been suffered to fall into disuse since its introduction in 1254, yet every tenant-in-chief had of old the right of attending, and though the lesser tenants-in-chief had hitherto seldom or never exercised that right, they now trooped in arms to Oxford to support the barons. To this unwonted gathering the committee produced a set of proposals which have gone by the name of the Provisions of Oxford. There was to be a council of fifteen, without the advice of which the king could do no act, and in this council the baronial party had a majority. The offices of state were filled in accordance with the wishes of the twenty-four, and the barons thus entered into possession of the authority which had hitherto been the king's. The danger of the king's tyranny was averted, but it remained to be seen whether a greater tyranny would not be erected in its stead. One clause of the Provisions of Oxford was not reassuring. The old Parliaments, which every tenant-in-chief had at least the customary right of attending, were no longer to exist. Their place was to be taken by a body of twelve, to be chosen by the barons, which was to meet three times a year to discuss public affairs with the council of fifteen.

The first difficulty of the new government was to compel the foreigners to surrender their castles. The barons swore that no danger should keep them back till they had cleared the land of foreigners and had obtained the good laws which they needed. Earl Simon set the example by surrendering his own castles at Kenilworth and Odiham. The national feeling was with Simon and the barons, and at last the foreigners were driven across the sea. For a time all went well. The committee of twenty-four continued its work and produced a further series of reforms. All