Pagina:Annales monastici Vol IV.djvu/37

PREFACE. XXix that the twenty-four were elected to govern the king- dom, he adds (p. 119), " sic mutaretur perperam ordo juris " naturalis, ut rex, qui subditos regere tenebatur, a sub- " ditis regeretur, et e converso ; " the fifth article of the provisions he calls, " omnino illicitus et prsecipue " detestandus." But the earl himself comes in for no small amount of abuse ; his remaining in France after being removed from his command in Gascony is put down to " prsemeditata calliditas " (p. 106), his opposition to the treaty with France in 1259, in which the foreign possessions of the English crown were resigned, to his hopes that one day the crown would come to his sons or heirs (p. 123). Afterwards he is accused of pride (p. 136), of sharing in the plunder of the Jews in Lon- don (p. 143), of unfairness to his own party, appro- priating to himself eighteen baronies of the defeated party ^ (p. 153), of unworthy treatment of the king (ib.), of craft, imprisoning Robert, earl Ferrers, to further his own ambition (p. 160), and of committing the royal seal to two laymen (Peter de Montfort and Ralph de Sandwich), " quod a sseculo fuerat inauditum " (p. 168). After the battle of Lewes the historian breaks out into a sarcastic address, " Salve comes faustis successibus " animatus, uvectus in sublime," &c. (p. 153), very unlike the usual style of monastick chroniclers. His sons are Simon de spoken of in little better terms than the father. Henrv ^"^tfo'^'s ^ . «^ sons. he accuses as treating Richard, king of the Romans, and his son more like captives than hostages ; and his seizure of the wool, followed as it was by a severe winter (p. 159), is spoken of as a cause of the wretched state of the country.^ Simon is called (p. 144) " pristinse prsesump- " tionis non tepidus ^emulator ; " and in the account ' See Pearson's Early and Middle Ages of England, ii. p. 259, note -. - The feeling with which this act was received in the country .is re- markably expressed by the chroni- VOL. IV. cler, in words which are too vivid to admit a doubt of their truth : " sic detrectando militiam de milite " streuuo communi nuncupatione " lanarius est effectus."