The opposition offered by the great council was baronial rather than national; the revolt in which it ended was a revolt of the half-breeds rather than a revolt of the English; and the government they established in 1258 was merely a legalized form of baronial anarchy. But there was this difference between the anarchy of Stephen's reign and that of Henry III's: now, when the foreigners fell out, the English began to come by their own. A sort of "young England" party fell foul of both the barons and the king; Simon de Montfort detached himself from the baronial brethren with whom he had acted, and boldly placed himself at the head of a movement for securing England for the English. He summoned representatives from cities and boroughs to sit side by side with greater and lesser barons in the great council of the realm, which now became an English parliament; and for the first time since the Norman Conquest men of the subject race were called up to deliberate on national affairs. It does not matter whether this was the stroke of a statesman's genius or the lucky improvisation of a party- leader. Simon fell, but his work remained; Prince Edward, who copied his tactics at Evesham, copied his politics in 1275 and afterwards at Westminster; and under the first sovereign since the Norman Conquest who bore an English name, the English people received their national livery and the seisin of their inheritance. CHAPTER III EMERGENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 1272-1485 In 1265, simultaneously with the appearance of English townsfolk in parliament, an official document couched in the English tongue appeared like a first peak above the subsiding flood of foreign language. When, three generations back, Abbot Samson had preached English sermons, they were noted as exceptions; but now the vernacular language of the subject race was forcing its way into higher circles, and even into literary use. The upper classes were learning English, and those whose normal tongue was English were thrusting themselves into, or at any rate upon the notice of, the higher strata of society.