sisted on the
right, however distant, which might accrue to his consort.[**] Lewis saw
in his obstinacy the unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons
insisted that the money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not
at Henry's, he also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to
which this monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad
intentions, was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.

{1261.} But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more favorable
aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power near
three years; and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of
the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandizement
of themselves and of their families. The breach of trust was apparent to
all the world: every order of men felt it, and murmured against it: the
dissensions among the barons themselves, which increased the evil,
made also the remedy more obvious and easy: and the secret desertion
in particular of the earl of Glocester to the crown, seemed to promise
Henry certain success in any attempt to resume his authority. Yet durst
he not take that step, so reconcilable both to justice and policy,
without making a previous application to Rome, and desiring an
absolution from his oaths and engagements.[***]

* Rymer, vol. i. p 675. M. Paris, p. 566. Chron. T. Wykes,
p, 53. Trivet, p. 208 M. West. p. 371.

** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.

*** Ann. Burt. p. 389.

The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the
barons; who, in order to gain the favor of the people and clergy of
England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated
their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and
privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage
belonging to their own families were included. The extreme animosity of
the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his disgust
to the order; and an attempt which had been made by them for further
liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was therefore less
acceptable to the court of Rome.[*] About the same time that the barons
at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the monarchy, the clergy
met in a synod at Merton, and passed several ordinances, which were
no less calculated to promote their own grandeur at the expense of
the crown. They decreed, that it was unlawful to try ecclesiastic