and the other alien merchants who had acted as Edward’s financial agents; Gaveston’s kinsfolk, followers and abettors incurred their master’s fate.  All Gascons were to be sent to their own country, their allegiance to the crown in no wise saving them from the hatred meted out to all aliens.  Neither high nor low were spared:  Henry de Beaumont, the grandson of an Eastern emperor, and his sister, the lady Vesey, were to leave the realm; John Charlton, the pushing Shropshire squire who was worming his way by court favour into the estates of the degenerate descendants of the house of Gwenwynwyn, was, with the other English partisans of the favourite, to be driven from the royal service.

Edward made a last desperate attempt to save Gaveston.  He would agree to all the other ordinances, if he were still allowed to keep his brother Peter in England and in possession of the earldom of Cornwall.  But the estates refused to yield the root of the whole matter.  Threatened with the prospect of a new battle of Lewes, if he remained obdurate, Edward bowed to his destiny.  The ordinances were published in every shire, and new ministers, chosen with the approval of the estates, deprived the king of the government of the country.

Early in November, Gaveston sailed to Flanders, but within a few weeks Edward insisted upon his return.  Rumours spread that Gaveston was in England, hiding himself away in his former castles of Wallingford and Tintagel, or in the king’s castle of Windsor.  The thin veil of mystery was soon withdrawn.  Early in 1312, Peter openly accompanied the king to York, where, on January 18, Edward issued a proclamation to the effect that Gaveston had been unlawfully exiled, that he was back in England by the king’s command, and prepared to answer to all charges against him.  A few weeks later, Edward restored him to his earldom and estates.  King and favourite still tarried in the north, preparing for the inevitable struggle.  It was believed that they intrigued with Robert Bruce for a refuge in Scotland.  Bruce, according to the story, declined to have anything to do with them.  “If the King of England will not keep faith with his own subjects,” he is reported to have said, “how then will he keep faith with me?”

The ordainers looked upon Gaveston’s return as a declaration of war.  Winchelsea pronounced him excommunicate, and five of the eight earls who sat among the ordainers, bound themselves by oaths to maintain the ordinances and pursue the favourite to the death.  These were Thomas of Lancaster, Aymer of Pembroke, Humphrey of Hereford, Edmund of Arundel, and Guy of Warwick.  Gilbert of Gloucester declined to take part in the confederacy, but promised to accept whatever the five earls might determine.  Moreover, John, Earl Warenne, who had hitherto kept aloof from the ordainers, at last threw in his lot with them, won over, it was believed, by the eloquence of Archbishop Winchelsea.  The ordainers then divided England into large districts, appointing one of the baronial leaders to the charge of each.  Gloucester himself undertook the government of the south-east, while Robert Clifford and Henry Percy agreed to guard the march, to prevent Gaveston escaping to the Scots.  Pembroke and Warenne marched to the north to lay hands on the favourite, and Lancaster himself followed them.