en and grandchildren. John of Gaunt, like Lionel, lost
his wife early and sought a second bride abroad. In 1372 he married
Constance of Castile, a natural daughter of the deceased Peter the
Cruel. Henceforth he was summoned to parliament as King of Castile and
Leon as well as Duke of Lancaster, though it was not until the next
reign that he took any actual steps to assert his claim.

John's next younger brother, Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge in
136% [1368?] married Isabella, Constance of Castile's younger sister.
He was the future Duke of York, and as the only one of Edward III.'s
sons who did not marry an English heiress, was the most scantily
endowed of them all. The union of his descendants with those of Lionel
of Clarence gave the house of York a territorial importance which was,
as we have seen, mainly derived from the Mortimer inheritance. Thus the
two lines of descendants of Edward III. which had most future
significance were those which represented through heiresses the rival
houses of Lancaster and March. The history of the next century shows
that the rivalry was only made more formidable by the connexion of both
these lines with the royal family. In this, the most striking triumph
of the Edwardian policy, is also the most signal indication of its
failure. From it arose the factions of York and Lancaster.

The legislation of the years of peace, from 1360 to 1369, is largely
anti-papal and economic, and is so intimately connected with the laws
of the preceding period that it has been dealt with in an earlier
chapter. But however anti-papal, and therefore anti-clerical, some of
Edward's laws were, his government was still mainly controlled by great
ecclesiastical statesmen. Simon Langham, though a Benedictine monk, had
as chancellor demanded in 1366 the opinion of the estates as to the
unlawfulness of the Roman tribute, and the clerical estate, if it did
not help forward the anti-Roman legislation, was content to stand
aside, and let it take effect without protest. Shortly after taking
part in the movement against papal tribute, Langham was removed from
the see of Ely to that of Canterbury in succession to Islip. His
conversion into a purely monastic college of his predecessor's mixed
foundation for seculars and regulars in Canterbury Hall, Oxford, showed
a bias which might have been expected in a former abbot of Westminster,
while his willingness to follow in the footsteps of Kilwardby, and
exchange his