It was on the 2nd of May, 1258; famine reigned throughout the kingdom. Henry III. had been reduced to the necessity of convoking Parliament. When he entered Westminster Hall, the barons were awaiting him there, clad in their armor. On hearing the clanking of arms at his arrival, the king suddenly turned pale. "Am I a prisoner?" he said nervously. "No," said Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk; "but your foreign favorites and your own extravagance have reduced the country to such an abject state of misery, that we demand that the power may for the future be vested in a committee of bishops and barons, in order that they may root out all the abuses, and make good laws for us." One of the Lusignans began to protest. The king agreed, without any reservation, to the demands of the barons, who promised, in return, to help him pay his debts, and to support the pretensions of his son in Italy, provided that he would give proofs of his sincerity at the reassembling of Parliament, which was to be convoked at Oxford. [Image] King Henry And His Barons. {229} At the head of the barons, in their resistance and indignation against foreigners, was Simon, earl of Leicester, himself a foreigner. The youngest son of Simon of Montfort, the persecutor of the Albigenses, he had inherited the earldom of Leicester through his mother, and had recovered his property, which had been confiscated in 1232, through the favor of King Henry, who had taken a fancy to the young Provençal, whom he had aided in marrying his sister Eleanor, widow of the Earl of Pembroke, to the great indignation of the royal family and the nobility of England. The favor of the king was short-lived. Montfort had initiated himself into the good graces of the barons, who had been so violently opposed to him at first; and the king, jealous and uneasy, drove him from England in 1239, scarcely allowing the earl time enough to embark with his wife, who went with her husband to France. He left her, to assume the cross and proceed to Palestine, where he distinguished himself by glorious feats of arms. On his return, the king had forgotten his jealousy and anger. The earl lived peaceably in England, and was even raised to the dignity of Governor of Gascony. He was recalled in 1252, under the pretence of misbehavior, and young Prince Edward was provided with the office thus snatched from the Earl of Leicester, who grew more and more attached to the cause of the refractory barons, of whom he became the real chief.