The power of the two parties was now more equally balanced, and their mutual apprehensions inclined them to listen to the pacific exhortations of the bishops.  It was agreed to refer every subject of dispute to the arbitration of the King of France; an expedient which had been proposed the last year by Henry, but rejected by Leicester.  Louis accepted the honorable office, and summoned the parties to appear before him at Amiens.  The King attended in person; the earl, who was detained at home in consequence of a real or pretended fall from his horse, had sent his attorneys.  Both parties solemnly swore to abide by the decision of the French monarch.  Louis heard the allegations and arguments of each, consulted his court, and pronounced judgment in favor of Henry.  He annulled the Provisions of Oxford as destructive of the rights of the crown and injurious to the interests of the nation; ordered the royal castles to be restored; gave to the King the authority to appoint all the officers of the state and of his household, and to call to his council whomsoever he thought proper, whether native or foreigner; reinstated him in the same condition in which he was before the meeting of the “Mad Parliament,” and ordered that all offences committed by either party should be buried in oblivion.  This award was soon afterward confirmed by Pope Urban; and the Archbishop of Canterbury received an order to excommunicate all who, in violation of their oaths, should refuse to submit to it.

The barons had already taken their resolution.  The moment the decision was announced to them they declared that it was, on the face of it, contrary to truth and justice, and had been procured by the undue influence which the Queen of Louis, the sister-in-law to Henry, possessed over the mind of her husband.  Hostilities immediately recommenced; and as every man of property was compelled to adhere to one of the two parties, the flames of civil war were lighted up in almost every part of the kingdom.  In the North, and in Cornwall and Devon, the decided superiority of the royalists forced the friends of the barons to dissemble their real sentiments; the midland counties and the marches of Wales were pretty equally divided:  but in the Cinque Ports, the metropolis, and the neighboring districts Montfort ruled without opposition.  His partisan, Thomas Fitz-Thomas, had been intruded into the office of mayor of London; and a convention for their mutual security had been signed by that officer and the commonalty of the city on the one part, and the earls of Leicester, Gloucester, and Derby, Hugh le Despenser, the grand justiciary, and twelve barons on the other.  In the different wardmotes every male inhabitant above twelve years of age was sworn a member of the association:  a constable and marshal of the city were appointed; and orders were given that at the sound of the great bell at St. Paul’s all should assemble in arms and obey the authority of these officers.  The efficacy