he knew that many of the barons did not love him. The
sub-tenants--the Knights Bachelors of England as they called
themselves--doubting his power to protect them, complained, not to
Simon, but to Edward, the eldest son of the King, that the barons had
obtained the redress of their own grievances, but had done nothing for
the rest of the community. Edward was now a young man of twenty,
hot-tempered and impatient of control, but keen-sighted enough to
know, what his father had never known, that the royal power would be
increased if it could establish itself in the affections of the
classes whose interests were antagonistic to those of the barons. He
therefore declared that he had sworn to the Provisions, and would keep
his oath; but that if the barons did not fulfil their own promises, he
would join the community in compelling them to do so. The warning was
effectual, and the barons issued orders for the redress of the
grievances of those who had found so high a patron.

19. =The Breach amongst the Barons. 1259--1261.=--Simon had no wish to
be involved in a purely baronial policy. He had already fallen out
with Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, the leader of the barons
who had resisted the full execution of the promises made at Oxford in
the interest of the people at large. "With such fickle and faithless
men," said Simon to him, "I care not to have ought to do. The things
we are treating of now we have sworn to carry out. And thou, Sir Earl,
the higher thou art the more art thou bound to keep such statutes as
are wholesome for the land." The king fomented the rising quarrel, and
in =1261= announced that the Pope had declared the Provisions to be
null and void, and had released him from his oath to observe them.

20. =Royalist Reaction and Civil War. 1261.=--Henry now ruled again in
his own fashion. Even the Earl of Gloucester discovered that if the
king was to be resisted it must be by an appeal to a body of men more
numerous than the barons alone. He joined Simon in inviting a
Parliament to meet, at which three knights should appear for each
county, thus throwing over the unfortunate narrowing of Parliament to
a baronial committee of twelve, which had been the worst blot on the
Provisions of Oxford. In the summer of =1262= the Earl of Gloucester
died, and was succeeded by his son, Earl Gilbert, one of Simon's
warmest personal admirers. In =1263= Simon, now the acknowledged head
of the barons and of the nation, find