The time of comparative quiet that followed was utilized by the king in an attempt to win back some of his lost authority. For a short space Edward showed more capacity and energy than he had ever been supposed to possess. Probably this was due entirely to the fact that he had come under the influence of two able men who had won his confidence and had promised him revenge for the murdered Gaveston. These were the two Hugh Despensers, father and son; the elder was an ambitious baron who hated Lancaster, the younger had been made Edward's chamberlain in 1318 and had become his secret councillor and constant companion. Finding that the king was ready to back them in all their enterprises, the Despensers resolved to take the fearful risk of snatching at supreme power by using their master's name to oust the barons who were now directing affairs from their position. The task was the more easy because Lancaster was at open discord with the men who had supplanted him, so that the baronial party was divided; while the mishaps of the last six years had convinced the nation that other rulers could be as incompetent and as unlucky as the king. Indeed, there was a decided reaction in Edward's favour, since Lancaster and his friends had been tried and found wanting. Moreover, the Despensers felt that they had a great advantage over Gaveston in that they were native-born barons of ancient ancestry and good estate: the younger Hugh, indeed, through his marriage with the sister of the earl of Gloucester who fell at Bannockburn, was one of the greatest landowners on the Welsh border: they could not be styled upstarts or adventurers. Edward's growing confidence in the Despensers at last provoked the notice and jealousy of the dominant party. The barons brought up many armed retainers to the parliament of 1321, and forced the king to dismiss and to condemn them to exile. But their discomfiture was only to last a few months; in the following October a wanton outrage and assault on the person and retinue of Edward's queen, Isabella of France, by the retainers of Lord Badlesmere, one of Pembroke's associates, provoked universal reprobation. The king made it an excuse for gathering an army to besiege Badlesmere's castle at Leeds; he took it and hanged the garrison. He then declared the Despensers pardoned, and invited them to return to England. On this Thomas of Lancaster and the more resolute of his associates took arms, but the majority both of the baronage and of the commons remained quiescent, public opinion being rather with than against the king. The rebels displayed great indecision, and Lancaster proved such a bad general that he was finally driven into the north and beaten at the battle of Boroughbridge (March 16, 1322), where his chief associate, the earl of Hereford, was slain. Next day he surrendered, with the wreck of his host. But the king, who showed himself unexpectedly vindictive, beheaded him at once; three