d a return of the foreign
influences), that he would adhere to the interest of the barons, which
was also that of the country. In the fourth year of his government
Edward was obliged to accept all the regulations made by a Committee
of the Nobles called the 'Ordainers.'

Without advice of the nobles he was forbidden either to begin a war,
or to fill up high offices of State, or even to leave the country: the
officers of the crown were to be responsible to them. Gaveston had to
pay for his short possession of influence by death without mercy.

It was long before the King found men who had the courage to defend
the lawful authority of the crown. At last the two Hugh Despencers
undertook it: under their leadership the barons were defeated, and
Thomas of Lancaster in his turn paid for his enterprises with his
life. For in England, if anywhere, the assumption of power led
inevitably to the scaffold.

It is hardly needful to say that the regulations of the Ordainers were
now revoked. But must not some means be also thought of, to prevent
similar acts of violence for the future? It was deemed necessary to
declare even the form, under cover of which they had been ratified,
invalid for all time. And so an enactment was now made, in which the
first definite idea of the Parliamentary Monarchy becomes visible. It
was declared that never for the future should any ordinance affecting
the King's power and proceeding from his subjects be valid, but only
that should be law which was discussed, agreed on, and enacted in
Parliament by the King with the consent of the prelates, the earls and
barons, and the commonalty of the realm.[50] For it was above all
things necessary to withdraw the legislative authority for ever from
the turbulent grandees. The monarchy opposed to them its alliance with
the commonalty of the realm, as it was expressed by the
representatives of the knights and the commons. Among the founders of
the English constitution these Hugh Despencers, through whom the
legislative power was first transferred to the united body of King
Lords and Commons, take a very important position.

This thought was however rather one left for the future to carry out,
than one which swayed or contented the English world at the time.
Edward II fell before a new attack of the revolted barons, with whom
even his wife was allied: he had to think it a piece of good fortune
that, on the ground of his own abdication, his son was acknowledged as