23. =Lancaster's Government. 1314--1322.=--Edward was thrown by his defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England without venturing to oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars broke out amongst the barons. In =1318= Bruce took Berwick, the great border fortress against Scotland. It was rather by good luck than by good management that Edward was at last able to resist Lancaster. Edward could not exist without a personal favourite, and he found one in Hugh le Despenser. Despenser was at least an Englishman, which Gaveston had not been, and his father, Hugh le Despenser the elder, did his best to raise up a party to support the king. In =1321=, however, Parliament, under Lancaster's influence, declared against them and sentenced them to exile. Edward took arms for his favourites, and in =1322= defeated Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and then had him tried and beheaded at Pontefract. 24. =A Constitutional Settlement. 1322.=--Favourites as they were, the Despensers had at least the merit of seeing that the king could not overpower the barons by the mere assertion of his personal authority. At a Parliament held at York in =1322=, the king obtained the revocation of the ordinances, and a declaration that 'matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.' Edward I. had in =1295= gathered a full Parliament, including the commons. But there was no law to prevent him or his successors excluding the commons on some future occasion. Edward II. by this declaration, issued with consent of Parliament, confirmed his father's practice by a legislative act. Unless the law were broken or repealed, no future statute could come into existence without the consent of the commons.