The effect of Gaveston’s return, and the renewal of Papal influence, was of course to increase the discontent, till, on the 27th of July, at a Parliament held at Stamford, the King was compelled to give his consent to a statute of reform. By this the first Statute of Westminster was renewed, the undue power exercised by the constables of the royal castles, and the extortions of the officers of the royal household, were checked; all old taxes upon wool and hides beyond the legal customs were removed; while, at the same time, a general letter was directed to the Pope, begging him to abstain from his exactions. The storm continued to rise. Very shortly after this, the great Earls of Lancaster, Lincoln, Warwick, and others, refused to appear at a meeting at York, if Gaveston were present. A meeting summoned in London at the beginning of the following year met with no better success. The Barons threatened to appear in arms if they appeared at all. The King, in fear, concealed Gaveston for a time; the Barons then indeed came, but came only to demand a complete reformation in the government, to which the King was compelled to give his consent. The precedent in his grandfather’s reign was then followed. From the present March to Michaelmas of the following year the government was placed in the hands of a commission of twenty-one members, who were to produce ordinances of general reform. Pending the production of these ordinances, some preliminary articles were at once established. For the payment of the King’s debts grants were to be recalled, and his expensive housekeeping was to be limited. To satisfy the national feeling, and in the hope of lightening the taxes, the Italian house of the Frescobaldi, who had hitherto farmed them, was to be deprived of that advantage, and Englishmen alone were to be employed in their collection; and before all things, the charters of liberty were to be observed. [Sidenote: Useless assault on Scotland. 1311.] [Sidenote: The Ordinances published.] [Sidenote: Policy of the opposition.] [Sidenote: Gaveston banished.]