o regular military
force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not, properly
speaking, in the hands of the people; the barons were alone intrusted
with the defence of the community; and after any effort which they made,
either against their own prince or against foreigners, as the military
retainers departed home, the armies were disbanded, and could not
speedily be reassembled at pleasure. It was easy, therefore, for a
few barons, by a combination, to get the start of the other party, to
collect suddenly their troops, and to appear unexpectedly in the field
with an army, which their antagonists, though equal or even superior
in power and interest, would not dare to encounter. Hence the sudden
revolutions which often took place in those governments; hence the
frequent victories obtained without a blow by one faction over the
other; and hence it happened, that the seeming prevalence of a party was
seldom a prognostic of its long continuance in power and authority.

{1262.} The king, as soon as he received the pope's absolution from his
oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents,
trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support promised him
by many considerable barons, and to the returning favor of the people,
immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a
proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach
of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, be declared that
he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert
the royal authority for the protection of his subjects.

* M. Paris. D. 667.

He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas de Ely, the justiciary and
chancellor appointed by the barons; and put Philip Basset and Walter de
Merton in their place. He substituted new sheriffs in all the counties,
men of character and honor; he placed new governors in most of the
castles; he changed all the officers of his household; he summoned a
parliament, in which the resumption of his authority was ratified, with
only five dissenting voices; and the barons, after making one fruitless
effort to take the king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to
acquiesce in those new regulations.[*]

The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered
to refer all the differences between him and the earl of Leicester to
Margaret, queen of France.[**] The celebrated integrity of Lewis gave a
mighty