liament at Oxford. But while he thus suppressed dangerous
innovations, and preserved unimpaired the prerogatives of the English
crown, he was not negligent of the rights of the people; and besides
ordering that a general amnesty should be granted for all past offences,
he declared, that his award was not anywise meant to derogate from
the privileges and liberties which the nation enjoyed by any former
concessions or charters of the crown.[*]

This equitable sentence was no sooner known in England, than Leicester
and his confederates determined to reject it and to have recourse
to arms, in order to procure to themselves more safe and advantageous
conditions.[**]

* Rymer, vol. i. p. 776, 777, etc. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 58.
Knyghton, p. 2446.

** Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 363.

Without regard to his oaths and subscriptions, that enterprising
conspirator directed his two sons, richard and Peter de Mountfort, in
conjunction with Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, to attack the city of
Worcester; while Henry and Simon de Mountfort, two others of his sons,
assisted by the prince of Wales, were ordered to lay waste the estate
of Roger de Mortimer. He himself resided at London; and employing as
his instrument Fitz-Richard, the seditious mayor, who had violently
and illegally prolonged his authority, he wrought up that city to the
highest ferment and agitation. The populace formed themselves into
bands and companies; chose leaders; practised all military exercises;
committed violence on the royalists; and to give them greater
countenance in their disorders, an association was entered into between
the city and eighteen great barons, never to make peace with the king
but by common consent and approbation. At the head of those who swore to
maintain this association, were the earls of Leicester, Glocester,
and Derby, with Le Despenser, the chief justiciary; men who had all
previously sworn to submit to the award of the French monarch. Their
only pretence for this breach of faith was, that the latter part of
Lewis's sentence was, as they affirmed, a contradiction to the former.
He ratified the charter of liberties, yet annulled the provisions of
Oxford, which were only calculated, as they maintained, to preserve that
charter; and without which, in their estimation, they had no security for
its observance.

The king and prince, finding a civil war inevitable, prepared themselves
for defence; and summoning the military