mense family-party at court, and got so many
good things, and pocketed so much money,
and were so high with the English whose
money they pocketed, that the bolder English
Barons murmured openly about a clause there
was in the Great Charter, which provided for
the banishment of unreasonable favorites.
But, the foreigners only laughed disdainfully,
and said, "What are your English laws
to us?"

King Philip of France had died, and had
been succeeded by Prince Louis, who had
also died after a short reign of three years,
and had been succeeded by his son of the
same name—so moderate and just a man,
that he was not the least in the world like a
King, as Kings went. ISABELLA, King
Henry's mother, wished very much (for a
certain spite she had) that England should
make war against this King; and, as King
Henry was a mere puppet in anybody's
hands who knew how to manage his feebleness,
she easily carried her point with him.
But, the Parliament were determined to give
him no money for such a war. So, to defy the
Parliament, he packed up thirty large casks of
silver—I don't know how he got so much; I
dare say he screwed it out of the miserable Jews
—and put them aboard ship, and went away
himself to carry war into France:
accompanied by his mother and his brother Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, who was rich and clever.
But he only got well beaten, and came home.

The good-humour of the Parliament was
not restored by this. They reproached the
King with wasting the public money to make
greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern with
him, and so determined not to let him have
more of it to waste if they could help it, that
he was at his wit's end for some, and tried so
shamelessly to get all he could from his
subjects, by excuses or by force, that the people
used to say the King was the sturdiest beggar
in England. He took the Cross, thinking to
get some money by that means; but, as it was
very well known that he never meant to go
on a crusade, he got none. In all this
contention, the Londoners were particularly keen
against the King, and the King hated them
warmly in return. Hating or loving,
however, made no difference ; he continued in the
same condition for nine or ten years, when at
last the Barons said that if he would solemnly
confirm their liberties afresh, the Parliament
would vote him a large sum. As he readily
consented, there was a great meeting held in
Westminster Hall, one pleasant day in May,
when all the clergy, dressed in their robes and
holding every one of them a burning candle
in his hand, stood up (the Barons being also
there) while the Archbishop of Canterbury
read the sentence of excommunication against
any man, and all men, who should henceforth,
in any way, infringe the Great Charter of the
Kingdom. When he had done, they all put
out their burning candles with a curse upon
the soul of any one, and every one, who
should merit that sentence. The King
concluded with an oath to keep the Charter,
"as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am
a Knight, as I am a King !"

It was easy to make oaths, and easy to
break them; and the King did both, as his
father had done before him. He took to his
old courses again when he was supplied with
money, and soon cured of their weakness the
few who had ever really trusted him. When
his money was gone, and he was once more
borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness
worthy of his nature, he got into a
difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown
of Sicily, which the Pope said he had a right
to give away, and which he offered to King
Henry for his second son, PRINCE EDMUND.
But, if you or I give away what we have not
got, and what belongs to somebody else, it is
likely that the person to whom we give it
will have some trouble in taking it. It was
exactly so in this case. It was necessary to
conquer the Sicilian Crown before it could be
put upon young Edmund's head. It could
not be conquered without money. The Pope
ordered the clergy to raise money. The
clergy, however, were not so obedient to him
as usual; they had been disputing with him
for some time about his unjust preference of
Italian Priests in England; and they had
begun to doubt whether the King's chaplain,
whom he allowed to be paid for preaching in
seven hundred churches, could possibly be,
even by the Pope's favor, in seven hundred
places at once. "The Pope and the King
together," said the Bishop of London, "may
take the mitre off my head; but, if they do,
they will find that I shall put on a soldier's
helmet. I pay nothing." The Bishop of
Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of
London, and would pay nothing either. Such
sums as the more timid or more helpless of
the clergy did raise were squandered away.
without doing any good to the King, or
bringing the Sicilian Crown an inch nearer to
Prince Edmund's head. The end of the
business was, that the Pope gave the Crown
to the brother of the King of France (who
conquered it for himself), and sent the King
of England in a bill of one hundred thousand
pounds for the expenses of not having won it.

The King was now so much distressed
that we might almost pity him, if it were
possible to pity a King so shabby and
ridiculous. His clever brother, Richard,
had bought the title of King of the Romans
from the German people, and was no longer
near him, to help him with advice. The
clergy, resisting the very Pope, were in
alliance with the Barons. The Barons were
headed by SIMON DE MONTFORT, Earl of
Leicester, married to King Henry's sister,
and, though a foreigner himself, the most
popular man in England against the foreign
favorites. When the King next met his
Parliament, the Barons, led by this Earl,
came before him, armed from head to foot,