een still remained childless and
Eleanor's children by one whom they looked on as a stranger promised to be
heirs of the Crown, rose in a revolt which failed only through the
desertion of their head, Earl Richard of Cornwall, who was satisfied with
Earl Simon's withdrawal from the Royal Council. The censures of the Church
on Eleanor's breach of a vow of chaste widowhood which she had made at her
first husband's death were averted with hardly less difficulty by a journey
to Rome. It was after a year of trouble that Simon returned to England to
reap as it seemed the fruits of his high alliance. He was now formally made
Earl of Leicester and re-entered the Royal Council. But it is probable that
he still found there the old jealousy which had forced from him a pledge of
retirement after his marriage; and that his enemies now succeeded in
winning over the king. In a few months, at any rate, he found the
changeable king alienated from him, he was driven by a burst of royal
passion from the realm, and was forced to spend seven months in France.

[Sidenote: Simon's early action]

Henry's anger passed as quickly as it had risen, and in the spring of 1240
the Earl was again received with honour at court. It was from this moment
however that his position changed. As yet it had been that of a foreigner,
confounded in the eyes of the nation at large with the Poitevins and
Provencals who swarmed about the court. But in the years of retirement
which followed Simon's return to England his whole attitude was reversed.
There was as yet no quarrel with the king: he followed him in a campaign
across the Channel, and shared in his defeat at Saintes. But he was a
friend of Grosseteste and a patron of the Friars, and became at last known
as a steady opponent of the misrule about him. When prelates and barons
chose twelve representatives to confer with Henry in 1244 Simon stood with
Earl Richard of Cornwall at the head of them. A definite plan of reform
disclosed his hand. The confirmation of the Charter was to be followed by
the election of Justiciar, Chancellor, Treasurer, in the Great Council. Nor
was this restoration of a responsible ministry enough; a perpetual Council
was to attend the king and devise further reforms. The plan broke against
Henry's resistance and a Papal prohibition; but from this time the Earl
took his stand in the front rank of the patriot leaders. The struggle of
the following years was chiefly with the exactions of