Henry took the wise course of being personally present on the occasion and taking his son Edward with him. Some of the barons also appeared in person, but not the Earl of Leicester, who was supporting the Welsh princes in their war with Mortimer, a method of continuing the struggle which was neither honest nor patriotic. At Amiens Lewis heard the cause, and did not long hesitate about his answer, which was delivered on January 23, 1264. By this award the King of France entirely annulled the Provisions of Oxford, and all engagements which had been made respecting them. Not content with doing this in general terms, he forbade the making of new statutes, as proposed and carried out in the Provisions of Westminster, ordered the restoration of the royal castles to the king, restored to him the power of nominating the officers of state and the sheriffs, the nomination of whom had been withdrawn from him by the Provisions of Oxford; he annulled the order that natives of England alone should govern the realm of England, and added that the king should have full and free power in this kingdom as he had had in time past. All this was in the king’s favor. The arbitrator, however, added that all the charters issued before the time of the Provisions should hold good, and that all parties should condone enmities and injuries arising from the late troubles. [Sidenote: Motives for the decision of the French king. ] Lewis mentions as his chief motive for thus giving the verdict practically in the king’s favor, the fact that the Provisions had already been annulled by the Pope, and the parties bound by them released from their oaths. But we cannot suppose that he was entirely guided by this consideration; it is probable that he did not understand the limits which the growth of constitutional life had put upon the exercise of royal power as early as Magna Carta, or the shameless way in which Henry had broken his engagements. He may, very reasonably, have regarded England as much the same sort of country as his own, and have seen in the strengthening of the royal power--a thing absolutely necessary in France at the time--a measure as necessary for England. He may have been moved by Henry’s own pleadings, or by the more weighty if more moderate statements which we can imagine were laid before him, by Edward. And the care that he shows for the restoration of peace and good feeling, may well be interpreted to prove that, although his award was more favorable to the one party than to the other, he yet did not think the defeated party entirely in the wrong. [Sidenote: Effects of the award of Lewis. ]