sell his estates in England, as we
learn from the same author; and we hear afterwards of his
ordering all his woods to be cut, in order to satisfy the
rapacity of the German princes: his son succeeded to the
earldom of Cornwall and his other revenues.

The successful revolt of the nobility from King John, and their imposing
on him and his successors limitations of their royal power, had made
them feel their own weight and importance, had set a dangerous precedent
of resistance, and being followed by a long minority, had impoverished
as well as weakened that crown which they were at last induced, from the
fear of worse consequences, to replace on the head of young Henry. In
the king's situation, either great abilities and vigor were requisite
to overawe the barons, or great caution and reserve to give them no
pretence for complaints; and it must be confessed, that this prince was
possessed of neither of these talents. He had not prudence to choose
right measures; he wanted even that constancy which sometimes gives
weight to wrong ones; he was entirely devoted to his favorites, who
were always foreigners; he lavished on them, without discretion,
his diminished revenue; and finding that his barons indulged their
disposition towards tyranny, and observed not to their own vassals
the same rules which they had imposed on the crown, he was apt, in
his administration, to neglect all the salutary articles of the Great
Charter; which he remarked to be so little regarded by his nobility.
This conduct had extremely lessened his authority in the kingdom; had
multiplied complaints against him; and had frequently exposed him to
affronts, and even to dangerous attempts upon his prerogative. In
the year 1244, when he desired a supply from parliament, the barons,
complaining of the frequent breaches of the Great Charter, and of the
many fruitless applications which they had formerly made for the redress
of this and other grievances, demanded in return, that he should give
them the nomination of the great justiciary and of the chancellor, to
whose hands chiefly the administration of justice was committed: and,
if we may credit the historian,[*] they had formed the plan of other
limitations, as well as of associations to maintain them, which would
have reduced the king to be an absolute cipher, and have held the crown
in perpetual pupillage and dependence. The king, to satisfy them, would
agree to nothing but a renewal