all. After
waiting idly on the banks of the Conway for some weeks, it retired
home, leaving the open country to be ruled by Llewelyn as he would, and
having done nothing but revictual the castles of the four cantreds.
Next year a truce was made, which left Llewelyn in possession of the
disputed districts. Troubles at home were calling off both father and
son from the Welsh war, and thus Llewelyn secured his virtual triumph.
Though fear of the progress of the lord of Gwynedd filled every marcher
with alarm, yet the dread of the power of Edward was even more nearly
present before them. The marcher lords deliberately stood aside, and
the result was inevitable disaster. Edward found that the territories
handed over to him by his father had to be conquered before they could
be administered, and Henry III.'s methods of government made it a
hopeless business to find either the men or the money for the task.

England still resounded with complaints of misgovernment, and demands
for the execution of the charters. Before going to Bordeaux in 1253,
Henry obtained from the reluctant parliament a considerable subsidy,
and pledged himself as "a man, a Christian, a knight, and a crowned and
anointed king," to uphold the charters. During his absence a
parliament, summoned by the regents, Queen Eleanor and Richard of
Cornwall, for January, 1254, showed such unwillingness to grant a
supply that a fresh assembly was convened in April, to which knights of
the shire, for the first time since the reign of John, and
representatives of the diocesan clergy, for the first occasion on
record, were summoned, as well as the baronial and clerical grandees.
Nothing came of the meeting save fresh complaints. The Earl of
Leicester became the spokesman of the opposition. Hurrying back from
France he warned the parliament not to fall into the "mouse-traps" laid
for them by the king. In default of English money, enough to meet the
king's necessities was extorted from the Jews, recently handed over to
the custody of Richard of Cornwall. After his return from France at the
end of 1254, Henry's renewed requests for money gave coherence to the
opposition. Between 1254 and 1258 the king's exactions, and an
effective organisation for withstanding them, developed on parallel
lines. To the old sources of discontent were added grievances
proceeding from enterprises of so costly a nature that they at last
brought about a crisis.

The foremost grievance against t