neighbourhood with such energy that the whole levies of the realm were assembled to subdue it.  After a fruitless assault, the royalists settled down to a blockade which lasted from midsummer to Christmas.  The legate, Ottobon, appearing in the besiegers’ camp to excommunicate the defenders, they in derision dressed up their surgeon in the red robes of a cardinal, in which disguise he answered Ottobon’s curses by a travesty of the censures of the Church.

    [1] For Edmund’s estates and whole career, see W.E.  Rhodes’
    Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, in Engl.  Hist.  Review, x.
    (1895), 19-40 and 209-37.

The blockade soon tried the patience of the barons.  It was hard to keep any medieval army long together, and the lords, anxious to go back to their homes, complained of the harsh policy that compelled their long attendance.  The royalist host split up into two parties, led respectively by Roger Mortimer and Earl Gilbert of Gloucester.  The cruel lord of Wigmore was the type of the extreme reaction.  Intent only on vengeance, booty, and ambition, Mortimer clamoured for violent measures, and was eager to reject all compromises.  Gloucester, on the other hand, posed as the mediator, and urged the need of pacifying the disinherited by mitigating the sentence of forfeiture which had driven them into prolonged resistance.  In the first flush of victory, Edward had been altogether on Mortimer’s side, but gradually statecraft and humanity turned him from the reckless policy of the marcher.  Edward’s adhesion to counsels of moderation changed the situation.  While Mortimer pressed the siege of Kenilworth, Edward and Gloucester met a parliament at Northampton which agreed to uphold the policy of 1258 and mitigate the hard lot of the disinherited.  A document drawn up in the camp at Kenilworth received the approval of parliament and was published on October 31.  The Dictum de Kenilworth, as it was called, was largely taken up with assertions of the authority of the crown, and denunciations of the memory of Earl Simon.  More essential points were the re-enactment of the Charters and the redress of some of the grievances against which the Provisions of 1258 were directed.  The vital article, however, laid down that the stern sentence of forfeiture against adherents of the fallen cause was to be remitted, and allowed rebels to redeem their estates by paying a fine, which in most cases was to be assessed at five years’ value of their lands.  Hard as were these terms, they were milder than those which had previously been offered to the insurgents.  Yet the defenders of Kenilworth could not bring themselves to accept them until December, when disease and famine caused them to surrender.  Despite their long-deferred submission, the garrison was admitted to the terms of the Dictum.