vereignly. A longer historical statement
was composed by the king's order in answer to Boniface. It is not
certain that the two documents ever reached the pope, but they had great
effect in influencing English opinion and in breaking down the alliance
between the baronage and the ecclesiastical party.[1] Winchelsea's
influence was fatally weakened, and the period of his overthrow was at
hand.

[1] See, on the barons' letter, the _Ancestor_, for July and
October, 1903, and Jan., 1904.

The triumph over Winchelsea made Edward's position stronger than it had
been during the first days of the Lincoln parliament. That assembly
ended amidst the festivities which attended the creation of Edward of
Carnarvon as Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, and Count of Ponthieu.
The new prince, already seventeen years of age, had made his first
campaign in the previous year. But all the pains that Edward took in
training his son in warfare and in politics bore little fruit, and
Edward of Carnarvon's introduction to active life was only to add
another trouble to the many that beset the king.

When the truce with Scotland expired, in the summer of 1301, Edward
again led an army over the border, in which the Prince of Wales
appeared, at the head of a large Welsh contingent. Little of military
importance happened. Edward remained in Scotland over the cold season,
and kept his Christmas court at Linlithgow. Men and horses perished
amidst the rigours of the northern winter, and, before the end of
January, 1302, the king was glad to accept a truce, suggested by Philip
of France, to last until the end of November. Immediately afterwards he
was called to the south by the negotiations for a permanent peace with
France, which still hung fire despite his marriage to the French king's
sister. The earlier stages of the negotiation were transacted at Rome,
but it was soon clear to Edward that no good would come to him from the
intervention of the _curia_. The fundamental difficulty still lay in the
refusal of Philip to relax his grasp on Gascony. Not even the
exaltation, consequent on the success of the famous jubilee of 1300,
blinded Boniface to the patent fact that he dared not order the
restitution of Gascony. "We cannot give you an award," declared the pope
to the English envoys in 1300. "If we pronounced in your favour, the
French would not abide by it, and could not be compelled, for they would
make light of any penalty." "What the Frenc