rl
Simon at Evesham. Greedy and ambitious as they may have been, they were
able men, and their policy was of a higher stamp than the wilful defiance
of Gaveston. It lay, if we may gather it from the faint indications which
remain, in a frank recognition of the power of the three Estates as opposed
to the separate action of the baronage. The rise of the younger Hugh, on
whom the king bestowed the county of Glamorgan with the hand of one of its
coheiresses, a daughter of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, was rapid enough to
excite general jealousy; and in 1321 Lancaster found little difficulty in
extorting by force of arms his exile from the kingdom. But the tide of
popular sympathy was already wavering, and it was turned to the royal cause
by an insult offered to the queen, against whom Lady Badlesmere closed the
doors of Ledes Castle. The unexpected energy shown by Edward in avenging
this insult gave fresh strength to his cause. At the opening of 1322 he
found himself strong enough to recall Despenser, and when Lancaster
convoked the baronage to force him again into exile, the weakness of their
party was shown by some negotiations into which the Earl entered with the
Scots and by his precipitate retreat to the north on the advance of the
royal army. At Boroughbridge his forces were arrested and dispersed, and
Thomas himself, brought captive before Edward at Pontefract, was tried and
condemned to death as a traitor. "Have mercy on me, King of Heaven," cried
Lancaster, as, mounted on a grey pony without a bridle, he was hurried to
execution, "for my earthly king has forsaken me." His death was followed by
that of a number of his adherents and by the captivity of others; while a
Parliament at York annulled the proceedings against the Despensers and
repealed the Ordinances.

[Sidenote: The Despensers]

It is to this Parliament however, and perhaps to the victorious confidence
of the royalists, that we owe the famous provision which reveals the policy
of the Despensers, the provision that all laws concerning "the estate of
our Lord the King and his heirs or for the estate of the realm and the
people shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by our
Lord the King and by the consent of the prelates, earls, barons, and
commonalty of the realm according as hath been hitherto accustomed." It
would seem from the tenor of this remarkable enactment that much of the
sudden revulsion of popular feeling had been owing to th