Those who desire information will find in every history book how this was done, and will read about the twenty-four nobles and men of high estate chosen in equal numbers by King and Barons--the Council of Fifteen, the Twelve Commissioners of Parliament, and the Twenty-four Commissioners of the Aid. All this belongs to the region of history rather than to that of fiction; but the result of this Parliament was that the King's power and that of his foreign favourites was, for the time being, broken, and a wave of enthusiasm and delight swept over the land, causing an outbreak of excitement and triumph which was quite enough to give anxiety to the authorities in such a turbulent city as that of Oxford. The great Earl of Leicester was for the moment the idol of the University. Whenever he appeared abroad he was hailed with shouts and cheers. His strong personality and the fascination of his manner won upon the clerks and scholars, till they would have been ready to lay down their lives in his service. He received the adulation of the crowd with a kindly dignity that won all hearts, and when it was found that he was about to leave one of his sons behind him to study the Arts in Oxford, public delight knew no bounds, and Amalric was almost as much lauded and praised as his great father. But, of course, there was never unanimity in this turbulent body of undisciplined youths. The very fact that the presence of De Montfort aroused in the breasts of many such unbounded enthusiasm, tended, as if from pure contrariety, to inflame others against him--to throw them into the arms of the party who sided with the King, and called De Montfort and his friends sacrilegious usurpers of the power and authority which had been vested by God in His anointed servant. The monks were for the most part ardent supporters of the monarchy, whilst the friars unhesitatingly declared that the kingly power could be abused, and that, when this was the case, God Himself raised up men of right and might to turn the King's heart from his errors, and to be champions of truth and freedom. Scripture precedents could, of course, be quoted on both sides, and controversy often raged fiercely. In an age and in a place where disputation and argument was as the elixir of life, and where a man's fitness for promotion in the University depended much on his oratorical powers and his ability to hold his own in some wordy warfare, it was likely enough that such burning questions as these should be discussed by high and low alike, with every weapon from the armoury of logic and rhetoric.