Gaveston had at first tried to propitiate the more powerful lords of the court, especially Earl Thomas of Lancaster and Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. The latter was an old and trusted servant of Edward I. Thomas of Lancaster was the son of Earl Edmund of Lancaster, the younger son of Henry III., who had been titular King of Sicily; his mother was Blanche, the Queen Dowager of Navarre, whose daughter by her first husband had married Philip the Fair. He was thus cousin to the king and uncle to the queen; he possessed the great estates with which his grandfather and uncle had founded the Lancaster earldom; he was Earl of Leicester and Derby also, and had thus succeeded to the support of those vassals of the Montforts and the Ferrers who had sustained them in their struggle against the crown; and he was the son-in-law and heir of Henry de Lacy. Distantly following out the policy of Earl Simon, he had set himself up as a friend of the clergy and of the liberties of the people. Personally he was a haughty, vicious, and selfish man, whom the mistakes and follies of Edward II. raised into the fame of a popular champion, and whom his bitter sufferings and cruel death promoted to the rank of a martyr and a saint. But he was not a man of high principle or great capacity, as the result proved. [Sidenote: Gaveston and the Earls. ] [Sidenote: Banishment of Gaveston. ] [Sidenote: Schism between the king and the lords. ] [Sidenote: Recall of Gaveston. ] No sooner had Gaveston made good his position than by his wanton insolence he incurred the hatred of Earl Thomas, and by the same folly provoked the animosity of the Earl of Pembroke, the king’s cousin, of the Earl of Hereford, his brother-in-law, and of the strong and unscrupulous Earl of Warwick, Guy Beauchamp. Some of them he had defeated in a tournament; nicknames he bestowed on all. One good friend Edward had tried to secure him; he had married him to a sister of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, the king’s nephew and their common playfellow; but even Earl Gilbert only cared sufficiently for him to try to mediate in his favor; he would not openly take his side. The storm rose steadily. Shortly after the coronation a great council was held in which his promotion was the chief topic of debate, and on the 18th of May he was banished. Edward tried to lighten the blow by appointing him lieutenant of Ireland, and besought the interposition of the King of France and the Pope in his favor. All the business of the kingdom was delayed by the hostility of the king and the great lords. Money was wanted, and could be got only through the Italian bankers, whom the people looked on as extortioners. The divided Scots were left to fight their own battles. Such a state of things could not last long. Edward had to meet his parliament in April 1309. He wanted money, the country wanted reform, but the king desired the return of Gaveston even more than money, and the nation dreaded it more than