barons met Simon at Oxford and finally summoned Henry to observe the Provisions.  His refusal was met by an appeal to arms.  Throughout the country the younger nobles flocked to Simon’s standard, and the young Earl of Gloucester, Gilbert of Clare, became his warmest supporter.  His rapid movements foiled all opposition.  While Henry vainly strove to raise money and men, Simon swept the Welsh border, marched through Reading on Dover, and finally appeared before London.

[Sidenote:  Mise of Amiens]

The Earl’s triumph was complete.  Edward after a brief attempt at resistance was forced to surrender Windsor and disband his foreign troops.  The rising of London in the cause of the barons left Henry helpless.  But at the moment of triumph the Earl saw himself anew forsaken.  The bulk of the nobles again drew towards the king; only six of the twelve barons who had formed the patriot half of the committee of 1258, only four of the twelve representatives of the community at that date, were now with the Earl.  The dread too of civil war gave strength to the cry for a compromise, and at the end of the year it was agreed that the strife should be left to the arbitration of the French king, Lewis the Ninth.  But saint and just ruler as he was, the royal power was in the conception of Lewis a divine thing, which no human power could limit or fetter, and his decision, which was given in January 1264, annulled the whole of the Provisions.  Only the Charters granted before the Provisions were to be observed.  The appointment and removal of all officers of state was to be wholly with the king, and he was suffered to call aliens to his councils if he would.  The Mise of Amiens was at once confirmed by the Pope, and, crushing blow as it was, the barons felt themselves bound by the award.  It was only the exclusion of aliens—­a point which they had not purposed to submit to arbitration—­which they refused to concede.  Luckily Henry was as inflexible on this point as on the rest, and the mutual distrust prevented any real accommodation.

[Sidenote:  Battle of Lewes]

But Henry had to reckon on more than the baronage.  Deserted as he was by the greater nobles, Simon was far from standing alone.  Throughout the recent struggle the new city governments of the craft-gilds, which were known by the name of “Communes,” had shown an enthusiastic devotion to his cause.  The queen was stopped in her attempt to escape from the Tower by an angry mob, who drove her back with stones and foul words.  When Henry attempted to surprise Leicester in his quarters at Southwark, the Londoners burst the gates which had been locked by the richer burghers against him, and rescued him by a welcome into the city.  The clergy and the universities went in sympathy with the towns, and in spite of the taunts of the royalists, who accused him of seeking allies against the nobility in the common people, the popular enthusiasm gave a strength to the Earl which sustained him even in this darkest hour of the