ster in London while Edward and
Simon remained without the walls. But the love of father and son proved too
strong to bear political severance, and Edward's reconciliation foiled the
Earl's plans. He withdrew to the Welsh border, where fresh troubles were
breaking out, while Henry prepared to deal his final blow at the government
which, tottering as it was, still held him in check. Rome had resented the
measures which had put an end to her extortions, and it was to Rome that
Henry looked for a formal absolution from his oath to observe the
Provisions. In June 1261 he produced a Bull annulling the Provisions and
freeing him from his oath in a Parliament at Winchester. The suddenness of
the blow forbade open protest and Henry quickly followed up his victory.
Hugh Bigod, who had surrendered the Tower and Dover in the spring,
surrendered the other castles he held in the autumn. Hugh Despenser was
deposed from the Justiciarship and a royalist, Philip Basset, appointed in
his place.

[Sidenote: Simon's rising]

The news of this counter-revolution reunited for a moment the barons.
Gloucester joined Earl Simon in calling an autumn Parliament at St.
Alban's, and in summoning to it three knights from every shire south of
Trent. But the union was a brief one. Gloucester consented to refer the
quarrel with the king to arbitration and the Earl of Leicester withdrew in
August to France. He saw that for the while there was no means of
withstanding Henry, even in his open defiance of the Provisions. Foreign
soldiers were brought into the land; the king won back again the
appointment of sheriffs. For eighteen months of this new rule Simon could
do nothing but wait. But his long absence lulled the old jealousies against
him. The confusion of the realm and a fresh outbreak of troubles in Wales
renewed the disgust at Henry's government, while his unswerving
faithfulness to the Provisions fixed the eyes of all Englishmen upon the
Earl as their natural leader. The death of Gloucester in the summer of 1262
removed the one barrier to action; and in the spring of 1263 Simon landed
again in England as the unquestioned head of the baronial party. What
immediately forced him to action was a march of Edward with a body of
foreign troops against Llewelyn, who was probably by this time in
communication if not in actual alliance with the Earl. The chief opponents
of Llewelyn among the Marcher Lords were ardent supporters of Henry's
misgovernment, a