There was a great deal of talk in the city at that time, and indeed all over the country, as to the condition of affairs betwixt the King and the Barons. Leofric and Jack were only gradually beginning to take any interest in political matters, being sufficiently engrossed just now in their own affairs; but Hugh talked often to Leofric about the great Earl of Leicester, who had married the King's sister, and who was now the head and champion of the Barons' party. He spoke of him with the ardent enthusiasm of youth, called him the greatest and noblest man of the day, would tell long stories of his prowess in Gascony and other places, and of the ill-treatment he had ofttimes received at the hands of the capricious and unstable monarch. "The King never knows his own mind two days together!" the young man had scornfully declared, "and he makes promises only to break them. He is the tool and dupe of the Pope, and is bleeding his country to death, sending all its wealth across the seas for objects with which we have no concern. And then he breaks every promise whereby he has attained these moneys, and our charters and liberties are trampled underfoot, even when he has most solemnly promised to observe and respect them." Hugh was an ardent supporter of that party in the kingdom which began to be called the Barons' party, and Leofric and Jack drank in his spirit eagerly. It was, in fact, the prevailing one amongst the members of the University of all grades. The friars, too, were far more in sympathy with the champions of the liberties and rights of the people and the constitution, than with the aggressions and tyrannies of a Pope-ridden monarch. So that Oxford, although divided in some measure upon the burning questions of the day, inclined on the whole very much in favour of that party of which Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was now the acknowledged head. When Hugh escorted his two friends through the streets to Dagville's Inn, where they were to sup with him as arranged, he was considerably excited by a rumour which had just reached the city, and which was causing no small stir there. It was said that Oxford had been chosen as the place where in a short time, perhaps two months hence, a Parliament was to be assembled in which the burning questions of the day were to be discussed, and some settlement of a definite nature arrived at between the King and his nobles. The very idea of this great assembly sent a thrill of excitement through the place. The streets were crowded with knots of clerks and citizens, for once all gathered amicably together, discussing the news which had been brought from London, and wondering whether it were true.