The fate of Gaveston might have warned any who counted on acquiring power by Edward’s favor, and in fact for several years he remained unburdened and uncomforted by a confidential servant. But the waning popularity of Lancaster seemed now to render the position of the king’s friend less hazardous, and an aspirant was found in the younger Hugh le Despenser. He was the grandson of that Hugh le Despenser, the justiciar of the baronial government, who had fallen with Simon de Montfort at Evesham. His father, now the elder Hugh, had been a courtier and minister of Edward I., and had been throughout the early troubles of the reign faithful to Edward II., but he was regarded as a deserter by the barons and had a bitter personal enemy in the Earl of Lancaster. Father and son were alike ambitious and greedy; they showed little regard for either the person or the reputation of their master, and sacrificed his interest whenever it came in competition with their own. The younger Hugh, like Piers Gaveston, was married to one of the heiresses of Gloucester, and had been appointed in 1318 chamberlain to the king under the government of compromise. Edward in his weakness and isolation clung tenaciously to these men; they had inherited some of the political ideas of the barons of 1258, and had perhaps an indistinct notion of overthrowing the influence of Lancaster by an alliance with the commons. The younger Hugh, at all events, from time to time uttered sentiments concerning the position of the king which were inconsistent with the theory of absolute royalty; he had said that the allegiance sworn to the king was due to the crown rather than to the person of the sovereign, and that if the king inclined to do wrong it was the duty of the liegeman to compel him to do right. Another part of the programme of the Despensers involved a more distinct recognition of the right of parliament than had ever been put forth by Lancaster, and it would seem probable that they hoped by maintaining the theory of national action, as stated by Edward I., to strengthen their master’s position, and through it to strengthen their own. So low, however, was the political morality of the time, that the same selfish objects were hidden under widely different professions. The Despensers had sadly miscalculated the force of the old prejudice against court favorites, and did not see how every step in advance made them new enemies. The Earl of Lancaster saw in their unpopularity a chance of recovering his place as a national champion, and a quarrel among the coheirs of Gloucester gave the opportunity for an outcry. Hugh of Audley, who had married Piers Gaveston’s widow, and who was therefore a rival and brother-in-law of Hugh le Despenser, showed some signs of contumacious conduct in the marches. The Earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer, the Lord of Wigmore, declined to join in the measures necessary to reduce him to order, and refused to meet the Despensers in council; and in a