The deep political purpose with which this parliament was assembled is reflected even in the formal language of the writs.  “Inasmuch as a most righteous law of the emperors,” wrote Edward, “ordains that what touches all should be approved by all, so it evidently appears that common dangers should be met by remedies agreed upon in common.  You know well how the King of France has cheated me out of Gascony, and how he still wickedly retains it.  But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet and a great multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of the earth.”  To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full and representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from every shire and two burgesses from every borough.  Moreover, the lower clergy were also required to take part in the assembly, the archdeacons and deans in person, the clergy of every cathedral church by one proctor, the beneficed clerks of each diocese by two proctors.  Thus the assembly became so systematic a representation of the three estates’ that after ages have regarded it as the type upon which subsequent popular parliaments were to be modelled.  This gathering marks the end of the parliamentary experiments of the earlier part of the reign.  It met on November 27, and each estate, deliberating separately, contributed its quota to the national defence.  The barons and knights offered an eleventh, and the boroughs a seventh.  It was a bitter disappointment to Edward that the clergy could not be induced to make a larger grant than a tenth.  Enough, however, was obtained to equip the two armies which, in the spring of 1296, were to operate against the French and the Scots.

The Gascon expedition was the first to start.  Early in March, 1296, Edmund of Lancaster, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln, landed at Bourg and Blaye.  John of St. John was still maintaining himself in that district as well as at Bayonne.  On the appearance of the reinforcements the Gascon lords began to flock to the English camp, and a large force was at once able to take the field.  On March 28 an attempt was made to capture Bordeaux by a sudden assault.  On its failure Edmund, who did not possess the equipment necessary for a formal siege, sailed up the river to Saint-Macaire and occupied the town.  But the castle held out gallantly, and after a three weeks’ siege Edmund retired to his original position on the lower Gironde.  Even there he found difficulty in holding his own, and before long shifted his quarters to Bayonne.  He had exhausted his resources, and found that his army could not be kept together without pay.  “Thereupon,” writes Hemingburgh, “his face fell and he sickened about Whitsuntide.  So with want of money came want of breath too, and after a few days he went the way of all flesh.”  Lincoln, his successor, managed still to stand his ground against Robert of Artois.  At last Artois