you, nor without your written instructions.' 'I cannot get a denier from your revenues,' he adds, 'for the king of France holds everything, and I cannot trust much to the people of the province.' He then describes the kind of war they will wage: "They will ride the country by night like thieves, in parties of twenty, or thirty, or forty.' Gascony was, in fact, a land in which feudalism had run wild; and her nobles, like those of the Rhine, had degenerated into castled brigands. It needed a firm hand to suppress them, and a firmer still to punish. But the close of Montfort's letter betrays, though in very guarded words, his sense of the real weak point of his position. 'I have heard that they have given you to understand many sinister things of me, and soon they will tell you that I was the cause of the war.' Without money, and without confidence in the population, it was a hard matter for Montfort to make head against a hostile nobility. But these open difficulties were nothing compared with the intrigues which were incessantly at work to undermine him at home, and to supplant him in the confidence of the king. Therefore, at a moment when he knew that a storm was brewing, and that in six weeks or less the Gascon nobles would be under arms, he was compelled to return home, that he might not lose in the cabinet more than he could win in the field.

A second time he returned to Gascony; a second time he reduced the rebels to obedience, and sent Gaston de Bearn and his chief adherents prisoners to England. He then prepared to make the work of conquest enduring, by the method which his great pupil the conqueror of Wales so well learnt from him, and to bridle Gascony with a chain of forts. On the 28th of November, a grant was made to him of the revenues of Ireland for the purpose: on the 28th of December, Gaston de Bearn was a pardoned man, and on his way back to Gascony. Such a labour of Sisyphus was the service of Henry III.

But the full mischief of the King's ill-timed lenity did not appear at once. In the course of the year Montfort was able to take Egremont Castle, the last great stronghold of rebellion; and on Advent Sunday, 1250, the factions of Bourdeaux, as ancient perhaps and as reasonable as the forties and sixties of our Channel Islands, were compelled to a solemn covenant of peace.

But on the feast of the Epiphany the Earl arrived in London, with jaded horses, and scarcely three squires in his train. He had come in his own person to ask the aid which he could obtain by no other means. The rebels had risen once more; and, taught not less by the pardon of Gaston de Bearn than by their own previous failures, they had taken care by their intrigues to cut off the supplies on which the Earl depended for his defence. Gascony had risen;

and

6

and for the King of England not a soldier could be fed or paid. Montfort had maintained himself as long as it was possible from the resources of his own earldom; and when these failed he wa compelled, critical as affairs were at Bourdeaux, to come himself to England for money. The answer of the King naïvely revealed the manœuvres that had been going forward. By the head of God, Sir Earl, thou hast spoken the truth; and I will not refuse sufficient help to thee who hast fought so nobly in my cause. But a report is come up with heavy complaints against thee, how thou didst commit to prison men who came peaceably to thee, and even such as thou didst thyself invite, as in good faith, and not only didst imprison such, but didst bind them, and put them to death.' The Earl's positive denial satisfied the King for the moment, and he returned with money and mercenaries at his command. His flight and absence had, of course, consolidated the rebellion: it was evident to the Gascons that they could count on a party within the court itself. But the war was once more renewed, with Gaston de Bearn, of course, in the front ranks of rebellion; and once more with the old result. The Gascons were put to the worse. It was long before they dared again to meet Montfort in the open field.

In or about the month of November, 1251, the Earl returned to England again, leaving the castles he had erected in the hands of men whom he could trust. But his absence was, as usual, the signal for a fresh outbreak. The rebels were wise in their tactics. They professed to resist not the King, but the seneschal ; and while they rose against the authority which the English Crown had constituted, they submitted to the King himself an almost endless list of charges against the Earl. The old saw, Asperge fortiter, aliquid adhærebit,' might have been made for Henry. He could not shake off the uneasy misgiving that some misconduct or another must have gone to produce this tempest of complaint. When the Earl asked him indignantly why he listened to traitors, confessed and convicted, with arms in their hands, rather than to his own lieutenant, he quietly replied that if the Earl's conduct were right it could surely bear inquiry. He could not understand that to inquire in such a manner, and at such a crisis, was like submitting his general to a courtmartial from the enemy's ranks; that it was to break the prestige on which the government of Gascony depended; to unnerve the arm of every true friend of England; and to make every restless noble and intriguing citizen in Gascony know that there was a sure means of getting rid of a seneschal who might prove to have an unpleasant capacity for command. Accordingly,

Accordingly, early in the year 1252,* two commissionersRocelin de Fos, apparently himself a Gascon, and Henry of Wingham, a former seneschal of the province-were sent partly to make their own inquiries into the proceedings of the Earl, partly to arrange for the coming to England of the delegates of the disaffected Gascons. We glean that the two commissioners formed opposite conclusions as to the administration of the province. The Gascon leaned towards his countrymen; the Englishman was so decided in his approval of Montfort that he was declared by the Gascons to be simply his partisan.†

The delegates, with the Archbishop of Bourdeaux at their head, then came, by the King's invitation, to Westminster, to present their complaints against the Earl of Leicester. The King, to Montfort's extreme indignation, sent out a second commission, t to inquire into the truth of the accusations, and to command the Earl to return and answer for himself. The report of the commissioners was, according to M. Paris, that the Earl of Leicester had certainly been severe, but that they considered his severity not undue. Meantime, he returned himself, and before the assembled baronage was confronted with the Gascon deputies. The King, it would appear, had resolved on the disgrace of Montfort; it was rumoured that he intended to commit him to the Tower. But when he had replied to the charges brought against him, the voice of the barons, with the King's own brother at their head, was so unequivocally in his favour, that no such step could be attempted. The King, who had expected a very different verdict, was not able altogether to suppress his feelings. A strange altercation ensued. The Earl reminded Henry of his services, and of the broken promises by which he had induced him to undertake the invidious government of Gascony. The King replied that he should keep no promises with a supplanter and a traitor. The Earl, in uncontrollable anger, gave the King the lie, and told him that but for his royalty he would have spoken the word in an evil hour for himself. Who can believe,' he added, that you are Christian? Have you ever confessed?' 'Certainly,' said the King. Then, what is the use of confession without repentance and satisfaction?'

*The commission bears date Jan. 6. R. de Fos was Master of the Temple in England.

William de Valence, the King's half-brother, was also sent out, and placed in communication with the commissioners. He was the leader of the foreign party, and the constant opponent of Montfort.

Mat. Paris, p. 836. The commissioners were Nicholas de Molis, an exseneschal and an Englishman, and Drogo de Valentin, a Gascon nobleman. The constitution of this second commission was thus exactly similar to the first. 'I never

'I never repented of anything so much,' retorted the King, 'as of suffering you to set a foot in England, or to hold land or honour in the realm, wherein you have waxed fat and kicked.'*

The mediation of friends put an end to this painful scene; but the impression which it left could naturally never be effaced. The most characteristic faults of the two men had in fact been brought out into strong relief; the unblushing meanness and half-hearted treachery into which the weak King was ever suffering himself to be drawn; the ungoverned temper and dictatorial impatience of contradiction which made it so hard for Montfort to work with others, and which marred so fatally the transcendent greatness of his career.

The Earl offered to resign his government, on condition that he should be indemnified for the expenses he had incurred, and those who had supported him guaranteed against the calamitous consequences of their loyalty. He could not obtain his request. He offered to resume his post, if only he might be properly supported. He could obtain this still less. The bulk of the King's council (so at least complains a friend of Montfort †) stood aloof at the critical moment; approving of Montfort's conduct, but not actively espousing his cause. At last the King issued a series of letters, the aim of which was to put both parties, as nearly as might be, on an equal footing, until Henry could come in person and settle everything by his royal presence. If a royal letter could have made the lion lie down with the lamb, the affairs of Gascony would have been settled. Montfort recrossed the sea; and 'waged infinite war againt the Gascons.' ‡ But this, if true, cannot have lasted long. We find him before the winter withdrawn from his province, and finding kindly shelter in France. While there he received a striking testimony to the value of those services which Henry had so wantonly thrown away. In December, 1252, the Queen Regent of France died. Louis was absent on his crusade, and the country was threatened with anarchy. The princes of the blood turned to Montfort, and 'devoutly requested him to remain with them, and be one of the keepers of the crown and realm of France.'§ Twice was this splendid offer made, and twice was it refused by the Earl of Leicester as inconsistent with his engagements to that King who had called him traitor to his face, and broken to him his most sacred promises. Still he stood aloof, like Achilles, from the service of Henry, and lingered upon the soil of France.

Mat. Paris, p. 837.

Adam de Marisco. See Monumenta Franciscana,' p. 128. Adam's whole letter, containing a detailed account of the trial, is extremely interesting.

1 Mat. Paris, p. 845.

§ Ib. p. 865.

The

The almost dying words of his friend Grosseteste taught him a more generous part. The King was now in Gascony, and of course in hopeless difficulties; when the sword of Montfort, 'whom the Gascons feared like the lightning,' was once more placed at his disposal. The province was reduced to tolerable order, and may be permitted to fade from our view.

In the year 1258 opened the first act of the great drama which has made the name of Simon de Montfort immortal. The brother-in-law of King Henry, the possible Regent of Jerusalem and of France, the scourge of the rebellious Gascons, however famous in his own day, would have bequeathed no name to posterity; it is by the War of the Barons that we remember the first nobleman of his day.

During the four years that had elapsed since his last visit to Gascony death had deprived him of two most dear friends, Grosseteste Bishop of Lincoln, and the Franciscan Adam de Marisco. Otherwise time had passed quietly with him; and occasional employments seem to indicate the restored favour of the crown. Meanwhile, the stream of misgovernment was rolling on with an ever gathering flood. Two new sources of exaction had been opened. Henry had accepted the crown of Sicily for his younger son Edmund; Richard Earl of Cornwall the empire for himself. Both wanted treasure; both had before long but too many creditors; Henry the worst creditor possiblethe Pope himself. Parliament stood aghast at the sums which Henry had pledged himself to find, and at the interdict which nonpayment might entail. At last with a bad harvest, and the consequent famine, came the long threatened crisis. To the famine was added a league between Scotland and Wales, and when Parliament-or to speak more exactly, the Great Council-met to consider the means of repelling invasion, they were greeted by a Papal nuncio, demanding more precise engagements about Sicily, and asking for untold money. The King's half-brother, William de Valence, in an evil moment, laid the blame of these calamities upon English traitors. He was asked to explain. He named the Earls of Gloucester and Leicester. Then followed such another scene as had passed six years before between Leicester and his King. But its effects were more quickly felt. The great issue of England for the English' had been put and challenged in the face of day; and before that Parliament dispersed, the Barons of England, at

* Modern usage has confined the word parliament, when strictly used, to a body including representatives of the lower laity; but the word is itself older than the introduction of representatives into the council of the nation. See Hardy, Preface to Modus Tenendi Parliamentum,' p. 14.

Leicester's