In the Barons’ War which followed, Hampshire and Winchester were intimately involved. It has been the fate of Winchester, almost from early Saxon days, to have within more than one rallying point for popular sympathy, and so to suffer peculiarly at all crises of national division; and so it was now. Few in the land had suffered more acutely from the king’s policy of preferring aliens than the monks of St. Swithun, and when the Barons’ War broke out the monks of the convent sided strongly with De Montfort. The citizens, however, held loyally to the king, and thus it came about that when in May 1264, a few days before the battle of Lewes, De Montfort marched against the city, the citizens rose against the convent, fearing lest the monks, who controlled part of the walls and the King’s Gate, should welcome the invaders and admit them to the city. A violent attack was made on them, the Close Gate was burnt down, and the invading citizens burst their way in and slew several of the monks. The fire spread to the King’s Gate and burnt it down; and when later on the gate was rebuilt, the monks of St. Swithun built above it a little church for the use of the lay servitors of the convent, and so the little church--now the parish church of St. Swithun’s, Winchester--came into existence, perched in mid air above the little postern gate. Nor was this all, for the year after, when Simon de Montfort the younger appeared again in arms before the city walls, the monks actually admitted him, and a wild night followed in Winchester; his troops revenged themselves on the defenceless citizens for their opposition by burning and plundering a portion of the city, and putting many of them to the sword. But the ascendancy of the barons was but brief, for in the same year, 1265, Prince Edward defeated and slew De Montfort at the battle of Evesham, rescued his father, and restored him to the throne. A memorable year was this both for England and for Winchester, for Henry summoned to Winchester his first representative Parliament, notable because for the first time representatives of the cities and boroughs appeared there with knights of the shires, along with the barons and prelates, and the abbots and priors of the leading monasteries. The Prior of St. Swithun’s and the Abbot of Hyde were both present at that remarkable assembly. In 1268 a second Parliament assembled at Winchester, and four years later the king died, and Edward I. became king.