In spite of all this the Provisions, modified at Westminster in 1259, endured for five years, and then it seemed as if nothing could save the country from civil war. As a last resource appeal was made by both sides to King Louis of France to arbitrate concerning the fulfilment of the Provisions, and at Amiens, in January, 1264, the award was given. Louis solemnly gave sentence for the king against the barons, entirely annulling the Statutes and Provisions of Oxford, and in particular declaring the king free to appoint his own ministers, councils, and sheriffs, and to employ aliens. But by the award--the mise--of Amiens the earlier charters given by the crown were to remain, and all disputes arising out of the Parliament of Oxford were to be suppressed. Louis gave as a reason for annulling the provisions that the pope had already annulled them. The appellants had turned to Louis hoping for peace. The award was the signal for war. Many of the bishops and barons at once withdrew from Simon, who answered the deserters by declaring, “Though all should forsake us, I and my four sons will fight to the death in the righteous cause I have sworn to uphold, to the honour of the Church and the good of the realm. Many lands have I travelled, heathen and Christian, but nowhere have I seen such bad faith and falsehood as in England.” London was enthusiastic in its support of the barons, and the Cinque Ports, the scholars of Oxford, and the Dominican and Franciscan friars were all on the side of reform. Chief among Simon’s supporters were Bishop Cantilupe, of Worcester, Gilbert, the young Earl of Gloucester, Hugh le Despenser, the justiciar, and Roger Bigod. War began in March, when Prince Edward captured Gloucester, joined Henry at Oxford, and then seized Nottingham and Northampton, while Simon and the citizens of London attacked Rochester. Henry turned south, and encamped in full force near Lewes. Again Simon laboured for peace, and in his own name and the name of Gilbert of Gloucester, the Bishops of Worcester and London went as ambassadors to Henry. Simon offered £30,000 to the king if he would make peace and keep to the Provisions of Oxford, and assured him that he had taken up arms not against Henry but against those who were “not only our enemies, but yours, and those of the whole kingdom.” The king treated the proposal with scorn, and Prince Edward added an additional message of contempt. On the 14th of May the battle of Lewes was fought and won by Simon, “through a singular conjunction of skill and craft on the one side, and rashness and panic on the other.”[47] The Earl of Leicester went into the battle fighting for his country and his oath, and with the exhortation to his men “to pray God, if this our undertaking be pleasing in His sight, to give us might to fulfil the same, serving Him as good knights.”