ority, as well as arms
of the state, was lodged in his hands: he instituted in the counties a
new kind of magistracy, endowed with new and arbitrary powers, that of
conservators of the peace [r]: his avarice appeared bare-faced, and
might induce us to question the greatness of his ambition, at least
the largeness of his mind, if we had not reason to think, that he
intended to employ his acquisitions as the instruments for attaining
farther power and grandeur. He seized the estates of no less than
eighteen barons, as his share of the spoil gained in the battle of
Lewes: he engrossed to himself the ransom of all the prisoners; and
told his barons, with a wanton insolence, that it was sufficient for
them that he had saved them, by that victory, from the forfeitures
and attainders which hung over them [s]: he even treated the Earl of
Gloucester in the same injurious manner, and applied to his own use
the ransom of the King of the Romans, who, in the field of battle, had
yielded himself prisoner to that nobleman. Henry, his eldest son,
made a monopoly of all the wool in the kingdom, the only valuable
commodity for foreign markets which it at that time produced [t]. The
inhabitants of the cinque-ports, during the present dissolution of
government, betook themselves to the most licentious piracy, preyed on
the ships of all nations, threw the mariners into the sea, and, by
these practices, soon banished all merchants from the English coasts
and harbours. Every foreign commodity rose to an exorbitant price;
and woollen cloth, which the English had not then the art of dyeing,
was worn by them white, and without receiving the last hand of the
manufacturer. In answer to the complaints which arose on this
occasion, Leicester replied, that the kingdom could well enough
subsist within itself, and needed no intercourse with foreigners; and
it was found that he even combined with the pirates of the
cinque-ports, and received as his share the third of their prizes [u].
[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 790, 791, &c. [q] Ibid. p. 795. Brady's
Appeals, No. 211, 212. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 63. [r] Rymer, vol. i. p.
792. [s] Knyghton, p. 2451. [t] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 65. [u] Ibid.]

No farther mention was made of the reference to the King of France, so
essential an article in the agreement of Lewes; and Leicester summoned
a Parliament, composed altogether of his own partisans, in order to
rivet, by their authority, that power which he had a