d king should do nothing grave or arduous without the advice of the
council, and that the Earl of Lancaster should hold the chief place in
the council". It was only after some hesitation that the earl accepted
this position. Once more the king was forced to confirm the ordinances.
Liberal grants were made by the estates, and every rural township was
called upon to furnish and pay a foot soldier to fight the Scots.

The commander of the army and the chief counsellor of the king,
Lancaster, was in a stronger position than any subject since the days of
Simon of Montfort. He could afford to despise aristocratic jealousy and
royal malignity. To the commons he was the good earl, who was standing
up for the rights of the people. He was the darling of the clergy, who
looked upon him as the pillar of orthodoxy, the disciple of Winchelsea,
and the upholder of the rights of Holy Church. The warlike and energetic
barons of the north were his sworn followers, and, apart from his hold
upon public opinion, he could always fall back on the resources of his
five earldoms. But events were soon to show that the successful leader
of opposition was absolutely incapable of carrying out a constructive
policy. He had no ideals, no principles, no feeling of the importance of
administrative efficiency, no sense of responsibility, no power of
controlling his followers. He never understood that his business was no
longer to oppose but to act. The clear-headed monk of Malmesbury paints
the disastrous results of his inaction: "Whatsoever pleased the king,
the earl's servants strove to overthrow; and whatever pleased the earl,
was declared by the king's servants to be treasonable; and so, at the
suggestion of the evil one, the households of earl and king put
themselves in the way and would not allow their masters, by whom the
land should have been defended, to be of one accord". Even the implied
understanding with the King of Scots was not abandoned by the man on
whom the responsibility rested of defeating him. When Bruce devastated
the north of England he still spared the lands of the king's "chief
counsellor," as of old he had spared the lands of the opposition leader.
When, in 1316, Lancaster mustered his forces at Newcastle against the
Scots, Edward repaid him for his inaction in 1314 by declining to
accompany him over the border. "Thereupon," wrote the border
annalist,[1] "the earl at once went back; for neither trusted the
other." Edward, who fo