Edward saw in submission to the estates the only way of bringing back his brother Peter from his gilded exile.  He persuaded the pope to annul the ecclesiastical censures with which Winchelsea had sought to prevent Gaveston’s return, and then recalled his friend on his own authority.  Gaveston at once quitted Ireland and was met at Chester by Edward.  Together they attended a parliament of magnates held in July at Stamford.  There Edward announced that he accepted the petitions of the estates and issued a statute limiting purveyance.  But the real work of this assembly was the ratification of the recall of the favourite, which was assured since Edward had won over some of the chief earls to agree to it.  Gloucester was easily moved to champion his brother-in-law’s cause.  Lincoln reverted to his former friendship for the Gascon, and managed both to overbear the hostility of Lancaster and to induce Earl Warenne, “who had never shown a cheerful face to Peter since the Wallingford tournament,” to become his friend.  Warwick, alone of the earls, was irreconcilable.  But Edward had gained his point.  It was even agreed that the returned exile should regain his earldom of Cornwall.

The annalists moralise on the instability of the magnates; and the sudden revolution may perhaps be set down as much to their incapacity as to the dexterity of the king.  But Peter’s second period of power was even shorter than his first.  He had learnt nothing from his misfortunes, save perhaps increased contempt for his enemies.  He was more insolent, greedy, and bitter in speech than ever.  Early in 1310 the barons were again preparing to renew their attacks.  The second storm burst in a parliament of magnates held at London in March, 1310.  The barons came to this parliament in military array, and Edward once more found himself at their mercy.  The conditions of 1258 exactly repeated themselves.  Once more an armed baronial parliament made itself the mouthpiece of the national discontent against a weak king, an incompetent administration, and foreign favourites.  The magnates were no longer contented with simply demanding the banishment of Gaveston.  They were ready with a constructive programme of reform, and they went back to the policy of the Mad Parliament.  As the king could not be trusted, the royal power must once more be put into commission in the hands of a committee of magnates.  So stiff were the barons in their adhesion to the precedents of 1258, that they made no pretence of taking the commons into partnership with them.  To them the work of Edward I. had been done to no purpose.  Baronial assemblies and full parliaments of the estates were still equally competent to transact all the business of the nation.  It is vain to see in this ignoring of the commons any aristocratic jealousy of the more popular element in the constitution.  There can be no doubt but that any full parliament would have co-operated with the barons as heartily in 1310 as it had done in 1309.  It was simply that popular co-operation was regarded as unnecessary.  As in 1258, the magnates claimed to speak for the whole nation.