The expenses of the war were still to be paid; and in 1244 Henry assembled a council, declaring that, as he had gone to Gascony on the advice of his barons, they were bound to make him a liberal grant towards freeing him from the debts which he had incurred beyond sea.  Prelates, earls, and barons each deliberated apart, and a joint committee, composed of four members of each order, drew up an uncompromising reply.  The king had not observed the charters; previous grants had been misapplied, and the abeyance of the great offices of state made justice difficult and good administration impossible.  The committee insisted that a justiciar, a chancellor, and a treasurer should forthwith be appointed.  This was the last thing that the jealous king desired.  Helpless against a united council, he strove to break up the solidarity between its lay and clerical elements by laying a papal order before the prelates to furnish him an adequate subsidy.  The leader of the bishops was now Grosseteste, who from this time until his death in 1253 was the pillar of the opposition.  “We must not,” he declared, “be divided from the common counsel, for it is written that if we be divided we shall all die forthwith.”  At last a committee of twelve magnates was appointed to draw up a plan of reform.  The unanimity of all orders was shown by the co-operation on this body of prelates such as Boniface of Savoy with patriots of the stamp of Grosseteste and Walter of Cantilupe, while among the secular lords, Richard of Cornwall and ’Simon of Leicester worked together with baronial leaders like Norfolk and Richard of Montfichet, a survivor of the twenty-five executors of Magna Carta.  The obstinacy of the king may well have driven the estates into drawing up the remarkable paper constitution preserved for us by Matthew Paris.[1] By it the execution of the charters and the supervision of the administration were to be entrusted to four councillors, chosen from among the magnates, and irremovable except with their consent.  It is unlikely that the scheme was ever carried out; but its conception shows an advance in the claims of the opposition, and anticipates the policy of restraining an incompetent ruler by a committee responsible to the estates, which, for the next two centuries, was the popular specific for royal maladministration.  For the moment neither side gained a decided victory.  Though the barons persisted in their refusal of an extraordinary grant, they agreed to pay an aid to marry the king’s eldest daughter to the son of Frederick II.

    [1] Chron.  Maj., iv., 366-68.

Further demands arose from the quarrel between Innocent IV.’ and the emperor.  A new papal envoy, Master Martin, came to England to extort from the clergy money to enable Innocent to carry on his war against Frederick.  The lords told Martin that if he did not quit the realm forthwith he would be torn in pieces.  In terror he prayed for a safe conduct.  “May the devil give you a safe conduct to hell,” was the only reply that the angry Henry vouchsafed.  Even his complaisance was exhausted by Master Martin.