September 1; and Edward appealed for help to his Gascon subjects,
beseeching their pardon for having negotiated the fatal treaty, and
promising a speedy effort to restore them to his obedience. He sent them
his nephew, John of Brittany, as his lieutenant and captain-general,
under whom John of St. John was to act as seneschal of Gascony.
Ambassadors were despatched to all neighbouring courts to build up a
coalition against the French. Strenuous efforts were made to get
together men and money, and the clergy were forced to make a grant of a
half of their spiritual income. Edward overbore their opposition amidst
a scene of excitement in which the Dean of St. Paul's fell dead at the
king's feet. The shires were mulcted of a tenth and the boroughs of a
sixth. And besides these constitutional exactions, the king laid violent
hands on all the coined money deposited in the treasuries of the
churches, and appropriated the wool of the merchants, which he only
restored on the payment of a heavy pecuniary redemption. Meanwhile,
about Michaelmas the lieutenant and the seneschal sailed with a fairly
strong force. Further levies were summoned to assemble at Portsmouth at
later dates. Besides the ordinary tenants of the crown, writs were sent
to the chief magnates of Ireland and Scotland; and Wales and its march
were called upon to furnish all the men that could be mustered. The
Earls of Cornwall and Lincoln were appointed to the command, and Edward
himself proposed to follow them to Gascony as soon as he could.

At the moment of the departure of John of Brittany a sudden insurrection
in Wales frustrated Edward's plans. All Wales was ripe for revolt. In
the principality the Cymry resented English rule, and the sulky marchers
stood aloof in sullen discontent, while their native tenants, seeing in
the recent humiliation of Gloucester and Hereford the degradation of all
their lords, lost respect for such powerless masters. Both in the
principality and in the marches, Edward's demand for compulsory service
in Gascony was universally regarded as a new aggression. The intensity
of the resistance to his demand can be measured by the general nature of
the insurrection, and by the admirable way in which it was organised. As
by a common signal all Wales rose at Michaelmas, 1294. One Madog,
probably a bastard son of Llewelyn, son of Griffith, raised all Gwynedd,
took possession of Carnarvon castle, and closely besieged the other
royal strongholds