ment in
return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth of the ecclesiastical
benefices, and a scutage of three marks on each knight's fee: but as
they had experienced his frequent breach of promise, they required
that he should ratify the great charter in a manner still more
authentic and more solemn than any which he had hitherto employed.
All the prelates and abbots were assembled: they held burning tapers
in their hands: the great charter was read before them: they denounced
the sentence of excommunication against every one who should
thenceforth violate that fundamental law: they threw their tapers on
the ground, and exclaimed, MAY THE SOUL OF EVERY ONE WHO INCURS THIS
SENTENCE SO STINK AND CORRUPT IN HELL! The king bore a part in this
ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these
articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a
knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed [p]." Yet was the
tremendous ceremony no sooner finished, than his favourites, abusing
his weakness, made him return to the same arbitrary and irregular
administration; and the reasonable expectations of his people were
thus perpetually eluded and disappointed [q].
[FN [m] M. Paris, p. 518, 558, 568. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 293.
[n] M. Paris, p. 568. [o] Ibid. p. 579. [p] M. Paris, p. 580. Ann.
Burt. p. 323. Ann. Waverl. p. 210. W. Heming. p. 571. M. West. p.
353. [q] M. Paris, p. 597, 608.]

[MN 1258. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.]
All these imprudent and illegal measures afforded a pretence to Simon
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, to attempt an innovation in the
government, and to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute
hand which held it. This nobleman was a younger son of that Simon de
Montfort, who had conducted, with such valour and renown, the crusade
against the Albigenses, and who, though he tarnished his famous
exploits by cruelty and ambition, had left a name very precious to all
the bigots of that age, particularly to the ecclesiastics. A large
inheritance in England fell by succession to this family; but as the
elder brother enjoyed still more opulent possessions in France, and
could not perform fealty to two masters, he transferred his right to
Simon, his younger brother, who came over to England, did homage for
his lands, and was raised to the dignity of Earl of Leicester. In the
year 1238, he espoused Eleanor, dowager of William, Earl of Pembroke,
and sister to t