the twenty-four barons
proceeded to enact some regulations as a redress of such grievances as
were supposed to be sufficiently notorious. They ordered that three
sessions of Parliament should be regularly held every year in the
months of February, June, and October; that a new sheriff should be
annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county [z];
that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did
not attend their courts, or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no
heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no
castles intrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests
should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let
to farm. Such were the regulations which the twenty-four barons
established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances.
[FN [x] Rymer, vol. i. p. 655. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 334.
Knyghton, p. 2445. [y] M. Paris, p. 657. Addit. p. 140. Ann. Burt.
p. 412. [z] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 336.]

But the Earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far
to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course,
or granting the king that supply which they had promised him,
immediately provided for the extension and continuance of their own
authority. They roused anew the popular clamour which had long
prevailed against foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence
on the king's half-brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of
all national grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to
protect. The four brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight,
with an intention of making their escape out of the kingdom; they were
eagerly pursued by the barons; Aymer, one of the brothers, who had
been elected to the see of Winchester, took shelter in his episcopal
palace, and carried the others along with him; they were surrounded in
that place, and threatened to be dragged out by force, and to be
punished for their crimes and misdemeanors; and the king, pleading the
sacredness of an ecclesiastical sanctuary, was glad to extricate them
from this danger by banishing them the kingdom. In this act of
violence, as well as in the former usurpations of the barons, the
queen and her uncles were thought to have secretly concurred; being
jealous of the credit acquired by the brothers, which they found had
eclipsed and annihilated their own.

[MN Usurpations of the barons.]
But the subsequent p