National inactivity. ] No great design is attempted during these years; the barons see no return for the great costs to which the king puts them. The King of France goes on Crusade, but Henry only raises money on the pretext, and spends or wastes it on other purposes. The Pope drains the kingdom. There are murmurs but no blows: no conspiracies, no leader. Simon de Montfort is employed in Gascony; Earl Richard minds his own business. The kingdom is again handed over to the Poictevins, yet no one has position or energy to take the lead. So matters drag on. In 1248, 1249, 1255, the demands for a regular ministry are confirmed; and now it is desired that they shall be appointed by the common council of the nation. In 1237 and again in 1253, the charters are solemnly renewed, and excommunication passed on the transgressors of them. In 1254 an assembly is held to grant an aid, to which two knights of the shire are called from each county, elected by the county court--a very important step towards the creation or development of a parliamentary system. At last, in 1257, by a series of events like these, the patience of the baronage is absolutely worn out, and the king by an extraordinary act of daring presumption gives the signal for the outbreak. [Sidenote: Henry and the Popes. ] [Sidenote: The archbishops.] Our second division of the causes which led to the great crisis of the reign, comprises Henry’s relations with the popes and the papal policy. It is not a thing to be wondered at that Henry should adhere closely to the Pope: for it was papal influence that made him king, and his mind was formed under religious influences redolent of papal ideas. He had to deal too with popes of high and masterly minds, and bowed implicitly to such. He never disputed or quarrelled with any pope; no point was to his mind worth defence. He was just old enough to remember the last days of the Interdict; he knew how Honorius III. had supported him against Philip and Lewis; he watched the long humiliation of Frederick II. by Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. He never knew a weak pope. He might have resisted, and would have gained immensely by resistance; his archbishops, Stephen Langton, Richard le Grand, and Edmund of Abingdon, were three model ecclesiastics, men unassailable in the points of patriotism, independence, and sanctity. Even Boniface of Savoy, although he was neither an Englishman nor a saint, would have boldly resisted the Pope, and strengthened the king with his sword if not with his staff. But Henry was generally thwarting his archbishops; he alienated their support, and wore out their patience. Edmund he drove into exile, by his tyranny and extortion; and even Boniface on occasion chose to side with the national party rather than to support such a king. [Sidenote: List of papal assumptions. ]