heiresses of the late Earl of Leicester: his subsequent marriage
with Eleanor, the King's sister, had brought within his view the
prospect of a crown; and his marked opposition to the extortions of
the King and the pontiffs had secured to him, though a foreigner, the
affection of the nobility, the clergy, and the people. Policy required
that the King should not provoke, nor should oppress, so formidable a
subject. But Henry did neither: he on some occasions employed the Earl
in offices of trust and importance; on others, by a succession of
petty affronts, irritated instead of subduing his spirit. Among the
inhabitants of Guienne there were many whose wavering fidelity proved
a subject of constant solicitude; and Simon had been appointed, by
patent, governor of the province for five years, with the hope that
his activity and resolution would crush the disaffected and secure the
allegiance of the natives. They were to the earl years of continual
exertion: his conduct necessarily begot enemies; and he was repeatedly
accused to the King of peculation, tyranny, and cruelty. How far the
charges were true it is impossible to determine; but his accusers were
the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the chief of the Gascon nobility, who
declared that, unless justice were done to their complaints, their
countrymen would seek the protection of a different sovereign. When
Simon appeared before his peers, he was accompanied by Richard, the
King's brother, and the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, who had
engaged to screen him from the royal resentment; and the King,
perceiving that he could not procure the condemnation of the accused,
vented his passion in intemperate language. In the course of the
altercation the word "traitor" inadvertently fell from his lips.
"Traitor!" exclaimed the earl; "if you were not a king, you should
repent of that insult."

"I shall never repent of anything so much," replied Henry, "as that I
allowed you to grow and fatten within my dominions." By the
interposition of their common friends they were parted. Henry
conferred the duchy and government of Guienne on his son Edward, but
the earl returned to the province, nor would he yield up his patent
without a considerable sum as a compensation for the remaining years
of the grant. Fearing the King's enmity, he retired into France, and
was afterward reconciled to him through the mediation of the Bishop of
Lincoln.

Though Richard had frequently joined the barons in