[1] Bp.  Stubbs works all this out, Chron.  Ed. I. and II.,
    ii., pref., lxxxvi.-xc.

The conferences at Pontefract and Sherburn showed that Lancaster and the northerners were in full sympathy with the men of the west.  The middle party again made common cause with the followers of Lancaster.  Amory’s interests were sufficiently involved to make him an eager enemy of Despenser, and Badlesmere was almost as keen.  Though Pembroke still professed to mediate, it was generally believed that he was delighted to get rid of the Despensers.  Even Warenne took sides against them, though the discredited earl was fast becoming of no account.  Such being the drift of opinion, the fate of the favourites was settled when the estates assembled in London in July.  Edward had delayed a meeting of parliament as long as he could, and was helpless in its hands.  Great pains were taken this time to prevent the repetition of the informalities which had attended the attack on Gaveston.  There was an unprecedented gathering of magnates, who came to the parliament with a large armed following, encamped like an army in all the villages to the north of the city.  The commons were fully represented, and the clerical estate was expressly summoned.  Articles were at once drawn up against the Despensers.  They had aspired to royal power; had turned the heart of the king from his subjects; had excited civil war, and had taught that obedience was due to the crown rather than to the king.  This last charge came strangely from those who had urged that doctrine as a pretext for withdrawing support from Gaveston.  It is a good illustration of the tendency of the Despensers to cloak their personal ambitions with loud-sounding constitutional phrases.

The peers pronounced sentence of banishment and forfeiture against both the elder and the younger Hugh.  They were not to be recalled save by consent of the peers in parliament assembled.  The easy revolution was completed by the issuing of pardons to nearly five hundred members of the triumphant coalition.  The elder Despenser at once withdrew to the continent.  The younger Hugh found friends among the mariners of the Cinque Ports.  These at first protected him in England, and then put at his disposal a little fleet of vessels with which, when driven from the land, he took to piracy in the narrow seas.

The fall of the Despensers was brought about very much after the same fashion as the first exile of Gaveston.  Like Gaveston, they speedily returned, and in circumstances which suggest an even closer parallel with the events that led to the recall of the Gascon.  The triumphant coalition in each case fell to pieces as soon as it had done its immediate work.  Once more the loss of his friend and comrade stirred up Edward to an energy and perseverance such as he never displayed on other occasions.  But the second triumph of the king assumed a more complete character than his earlier snatched victory.  Accident favoured