Edward plucked up courage to return to London, where in July he addressed the citizens, and persuaded them to maintain the peace of the city against the barons.  He next visited Dover, and there he strengthened the fortifications of the castle, took oaths of fealty from the Cinque Ports, and negotiated with the King of France.  Thence he returned to London, hoping that the precautions he had taken would secure his position in the parliament which he had summoned to meet at Westminster.  But the four earls still held the field, and answered the summons to parliament by occupying Ware with a strong military force.  A thousand men-at-arms were drawn by Lancaster from his five earldoms, while the Welsh from Brecon, who followed the Earl of Hereford, and the vigorous foresters of Arden, who mustered under the banner of Warwick, made a formidable show.  Yet at the last moment neither side was eager to begin hostilities.  The four earls’ violence damaged their cause, and many who had no love of Gaveston, or desire to avenge him, inclined to the king’s party.  Gilbert of Gloucester busied himself with mediating between the two sides.  At this juncture two papal envoys, sent to end the interminable outstanding disputes with France, arrived in England, along with Louis, Count of Evreux, the queen’s uncle.  Edward availed himself of the presence of French jurists in the count’s train to obtain legal opinion that the ordinances were invalid, as against natural equity and civil law.  These technicalities did little service to the king’s cause, and better work was done when Louis and the papal envoys joined with Gloucester in mediating between the opposing forces.  At length moderate counsels prevailed.  Edward could only resist the four earls through the support of his new allies, and Pembroke and Warenne were as little anxious to fight as Gloucester himself.  They were quite willing to make terms which seemed to the king treason to his friend’s memory.

The negotiations were still proceeding when, on November 13, 1312, the birth of a son to Edward and Isabella revived the almost dormant feeling of loyalty to the sovereign.  The king ceased to brood over the loss of his brother Peter, and became more willing to accept the inevitable.  He gave some pleasure to his subjects by refusing the suggestion of the queen’s uncle that the child should be called Louis, and christened him Edward after his own father.  At last, on December 22, terms of peace were agreed upon.  The earls and barons concerned in Gaveston’s death were to appear before the king in Westminster Hall, and humbly beg his pardon and good-will.  In return for this the king agreed to remit all rancour caused by the death of the favourite.  Lancaster and Warwick, who took no personal part in the negotiations, sent in a long list of objections to the details of the treaty.  Nearly a year elapsed before the earls personally acknowledged their fault.  During that interval there was no improvement in the position