y began, though on very unequal terms.
Leicester's army, by living in the mountains of Wales without bread,
which was not then much used among the inhabitants, had been extremely
weakened by sickness and desertion, and was soon broken by the
victorious royalists; while his Welsh allies, accustomed only to a
desultory kind of war, immediately took to flight, and were pursued with
great slaughter. Leicester himself, asking for quarter, was slain in the
heat of the action, with his eldest son Henry, Hugh le Despenser, and
about one hundred and sixty knights, and many other gentlemen of his
party. The old king had been purposely placed by the rebels in the front
of the battle, and being clad in armor, and thereby not known by his
friends, he received a wound, and was in danger of his life; but crying
out, "I am Henry of Winchester, your king," he was saved, and put in a
place of safety by his son, who flew to his rescue.

The violence, ingratitude, tyranny, rapacity, and treachery of the earl
of Leicester, give a very bad idea of his moral character, and make us
regard his death as the most fortunate event which, in this conjuncture,
could have happened to the English nation: yet must we allow the man
to have possessed great abilities, and the appearance of great virtues,
who, though a stranger, could, at a time when strangers were the most
odious and the most universally decried, have acquired so extensive an
interest in the kingdom, and have so nearly paved his way to the throne
itself. His military capacity, and his political craft, were equally
eminent: he possessed the talents both of governing men and conducting
business; and though his ambition was boundless, it seems neither to
have exceeded his courage nor his genius; and he had the happiness
of making the low populace, as well as the haughty barons, cooeperate
towards the success of his selfish and dangerous purposes. A prince of
greater abilities and vigor than Henry might have directed the talents
of this nobleman either to the exaltation of his throne or to the good
of his people but the advantages given to Leicester, by the weak and
variable administration of the king, brought on the ruin of royal
authority, and produced great confusions in the kingdom which, however,
in the end, preserved and extremely improved national liberty and the
constitution. His popularity, even after his death, continued so great,
that, though he was excommunicated by Rome, the people