the pillage of their goods,
and often to the destruction of their persons. The queen, who, though
defended by the Tower, was terrified by the neighborhood of such
dangerous commotions, resolved to go by water to the Castle of Windsor;
but as she approached the bridge, the populace assembled against her:
the cry ran, "Drown the witch;" and besides abusing her with the most
opprobrious language, and pelting her with rotten eggs and dirt, they
had prepared large stones to sink her barge, when she should attempt to
shoot the bridge; and she was so frightened, that she returned to the
Tower[**]

The violence and fury of Leicester's faction had risen to such a height
in all parts of England, that the king, unable to resist their
power, was obliged to set on foot a treaty of peace, and to make an
accommodation with the barons on the most disadvantageous terms.[***]

* Chron T. Wykes, p. 59.

** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 57.

*** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 358. Trivet, p. 211.

He agreed to confirm anew the provisions of Oxford, even those which
entirely annihilated the royal authority; and the barons were again
reinstated in the sovereignty of the kingdom. They restored Hugh le
Despenser to the office of chief justiciary: they appointed their own
creatures sheriffs in every county of England; they took possession of
all the royal castles and fortresses; they even named all the officers
of the king's household; and they summoned a parliament to meet at
Westminster, in order to settle more fully their plan of government.
They here produced a new list of twenty-four barons, to whom they
proposed that the administration should be entirely committed; and
they insisted that the authority of this junto should continue not only
during the reign of the king, but also during that of Prince Edward.

This prince, the life and soul of the royal party, had unhappily,
before the king's accommodation with the barons, been taken prisoner by
Leicester in a parley at Windsor;[*] and that misfortune, more than
any other incident, had determined Henry to submit to the ignominious
conditions imposed upon him. But Edward, having recovered his liberty by
the treaty, employed his activity in defending the prerogatives of his
family; and he gained a great party even among-those who had at first
adhered to the cause of the barons. His cousin, Henry d'Allmaine, Roger
Bigod, earl mareschal, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford,
Jo