ilure led
to the dissolution of the baronial opposition into fiercely opposing
factions. Personal and territorial jealousies slowly undermined a unity
which had always been more apparent than real. The Earl of Pembroke had
never forgiven the treachery of Deddington. Though Warwick was dead,
Pembroke still pursued Lancaster with unrelenting hatred. No partisan
of prerogative, and an enemy of Edward's personal following, Earl Aymer
separated himself from his old associates and strove to form a middle
party between the faction of the king and the faction of Lancaster.
Warerine, coarse, turbulent, and vicious, at once violent and crafty,
still acted with him. The lord of Conisborough had long grudged the
master of Pontefract and Sandal his great position in Yorkshire. The
natural rivalries of neighbouring potentates were further emphasised by
personal animosity of the deadliest kind. Lancaster had long been at
variance with his wife, Alice Lacy. On May 9, 1317, the Countess of
Lancaster ran away from him, with the active help of Warenne and by the
secret contrivance of the king. Private war at once broke out between
the two earls. Lancaster was too strong for his enemy. Before winter
had begun, Conisborough and Warenne's other Yorkshire castles fell into
his hands. Lancaster's partisans even laid hold of the king's castle of
Knaresborough, while other Lancastrian bands occupied Alton castle in
Staffordshire. Intermittent hostilities continued until the summer of
1318. Twice Edward himself went to the north, and on one occasion
appeared in force outside Pontefract. But the more moderate of the
baronage managed to prevent open hostilities between the king and the
earl. Lancaster was, as ever, fighting for his own hand. His
self-seeking narrowness gave Pembroke the chance of winning for his
middle party a preponderating authority.

Pembroke found more trustworthy allies than Warenne in Bartholomew,
Lord Badlesmere, the sometime instigator of the Bristol troubles, and a
bitter opponent of Lancaster, and in Roger of Amory, the husband of one
of the three co-heiresses who now divided the Gloucester inheritance.
Edward, who had profited by the divisions of his enemies to revive the
court party, formed a coalition between his friends and the followers
of Pembroke. All lovers of order, of moderation, and of the supremacy
of the law necessarily made common cause with them. Thus it followed
that the same machinery, which Lancaster a f