enry's train at Christmas to
witness the surrender of Kenilworth which had been stipulated as the price
of his full reconciliation with the king. But hot blood was now stirred
again on both sides. The garrison replied to the royal summons by a refusal
to surrender. They had received ward of the castle, they said, not from
Simon but from the Countess, and to none but her would they give it up. The
refusal was not likely to make Simon's position an easier one. On his
return to London the award of the arbitrators bound him to quit the realm
and not to return save with the assent of king and baronage when all were
at peace. He remained for a while in free custody at London; but warnings
that he was doomed to lifelong imprisonment drove him to flight, and he
finally sought a refuge over sea.

[Sidenote: Ban of Kenilworth]

His escape set England again on fire. Llewelyn wasted the border; the
Cinque Ports held the sea; the garrison of Kenilworth pushed their raids as
far as Oxford; Baldewin Wake with a band of the Disinherited threw himself
into the woods and harried the eastern counties; Sir Adam Gurdon, a knight
of gigantic size and renowned prowess, wasted with a smaller party the
shires of the south. In almost every county bands of outlaws were seeking a
livelihood in rapine and devastation, while the royal treasury stood empty
and the enormous fine imposed upon London had been swept into the coffers
of French usurers. But a stronger hand than the king's was now at the head
of affairs, and Edward met his assailants with untiring energy. King
Richard's son, Henry of Almaine, was sent with a large force to the north;
Mortimer hurried to hold the Welsh border; Edmund was despatched to Warwick
to hold Kenilworth in check; while Edward himself marched at the opening of
March to the south. The Berkshire woods were soon cleared, and at
Whitsuntide Edward succeeded in dispersing Adam Gurdon's band and in
capturing its renowned leader in single combat. The last blow was already
given to the rising in the north, where Henry of Almaine surprised the
Disinherited at Chesterfield and took their leader, the Earl of Derby, in
his bed. Though Edmund had done little but hold the Kenilworth knights in
check, the submission of the rest of the country now enabled the royal army
to besiege it in force. But the king was penniless, and the Parliament
which he called to replenish his treasury in August showed the resolve of
the nation that the