consequence of the king’s complaint of their refusal to pay the scutage for the Poitevin war; he reproved them for their contumacy in this matter, and “warned and exhorted” them to satisfy the king’s claims without further delay.[986] [Sidenote: April 19–26] By the middle of April the two former of these letters must have reached England, the second being probably brought back by Eustace de Vesci and his companions. The third letter was scarcely needed to show the barons that their cause was lost at Rome. John, moreover, had secured its ruin in that quarter by taking the Cross[987]--partly, no doubt, as a protection against personal violence, but still more as a means of enlisting the Pope’s strongest sympathies in his behalf, and holding up his enemies to execration as hinderers of the crusade. They grew desperate; they held another council among themselves, at which they determined, without waiting for their promised interview with the king, that they “would deal civilly with him no longer”;[988] and in Easter week they assembled at Stamford in arms. Five earls and forty barons are mentioned by name as present at the muster, “with many others”; they all came with horses and arms, and brought with them “a countless host,” estimated to comprise about two thousand knights, besides other horsemen, sergeants-at-arms, and foot soldiers.[989] “And because for the most part they came from the north, they were all called Northerners.” From Stamford they marched to Northampton, but without doing any act of violence.[990] John, who had spent Easter in London,[991] sent the primate and some other bishops and magnates to parley with them.[992] Several meetings appear to have taken place. The deliberations evidently turned chiefly on the Pope’s letters. No allusion is made by the chroniclers to the letter about the scutage, which perhaps had not yet arrived; but, on the one hand, Innocent’s condemnation of secret conspiracies could not be ignored; and on the other, the barons urged his injunction to the king to hearken to their “just petitions.”[993] At length John--secure in the consciousness that he could refuse every petition on the plea that it was not just--authorized his commissioners to demand of the barons, in his name, a categorical statement of the laws and liberties which they desired.