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Henry III should enforce reforms. Henry agreed, and on 11 June met the barons at Oxford. They came with their men armed as for war, for they had been summoned for an expedition into Wales. The assembly gained the name of the ‘Mad parliament.’ A schedule of grievances was drawn up, a council of twenty-four was appointed, half by the king from his party and half by the barons, to effect reforms in church and state, and a body of fifteen was chosen by an intricate process devised to secure fairness to both parties to be the king's permanent council. Parliaments were to meet three times a year, and were to consist of the fifteen and a committee of twelve chosen by the baronage, who were to discuss the proceedings of the council. Another body of twenty-four was chosen by the parliament to arrange an aid (Const. Hist. ii. 74–8; Select Charters, pp. 367 seq.). The two bodies of twenty-four were temporary institutions; their existence was to end with the performance of their work. As a whole the scheme meant the establishment of a direct control over the executive, and its character was oligarchic; the national council shrunk to a small committee of the chief men of the kingdom. A justiciar, treasurer, and chancellor were chosen; they and the sheriffs were to hold office only for a year, and were then to answer for their acts before the king and his council. One of the first resolutions of the new council was that the king should resume possession of those royal castles which he had alienated, and that he should make them over to the custody of nineteen English barons. Henry's alien relatives declined to obey this order, and many, leaving the court, flung themselves into the castle of Wolvesey, then held by Aymer de Lusignan, bishop of Winchester, who refused to deliver the castle to the barons. Henry accompanied the baronial force to besiege the castle, which was surrendered on 5 July 1258, and on 5 Aug. he declared the council of twenty-four empowered to reform the realm. For the time he was helpless and knew it. One sultry July day he was overtaken on the Thames by a thunderstorm, landed, and sought shelter in the Bishop of Durham's house (where the Adelphi now stands), then occupied by Simon de Montfort. The earl came out to meet him, and seeing him disturbed assured him that the storm was over. ‘I fear thunder and lightning exceedingly,’ the king answered, ‘but by God's head I fear thee more than all the thunder and lightning in the world’ (, v. 706). On 18 Oct. he renewed his assent to the appointment of the twenty-four, in a proclamation published in English as well as in Latin and French (Select Charters, p. 387). When Richard, king of the Romans, landed in January 1259, Henry met him and persuaded him to take the oath to the provisions of Oxford. A truce was made with the Welsh, and a peace with Louis IX, which was completed during a visit paid to France by Henry. He crossed, accompanied by the queen, on 14 Nov., spent Christmas at Paris, and gave up the claim to Normandy and the other hereditary possessions of the crown, receiving some territories in Gascony which had been lost (Fœdera, i. 383, 389). Although the Sicilian scheme had been quashed by the new government, he wrote to the Archbishop of Messina on 16 Jan. 1260, announcing that he expected that the peace with France would enable him to prosecute it with more energy (Royal Letters, ii. 147). He was present at the funeral of Prince Louis, and on the 22nd married his daughter Beatrice to John, duke of Brittany. At Easter he was at St. Omers, and landed in England on 23 April 1260, his return being hastened by the report that his son Edward was plotting with Earl Simon to dethrone him. The baronial party was divided: one, and that the more unselfish section, was headed by Earl Simon, with whom Edward was for the time in alliance; the other section, which had oligarchical aims, was headed by Gloucester, who had been with the king in France, and was supported by him.

Henry took up his lodgings at St. Paul's, caused Gloucester to remain within the city, and had the gates closely watched. He was reconciled to Edward, and brought accusations against Earl Simon, probably before the barons at a meeting at St. Paul's, soon after his return. An arbitration was decided on. During the autumn of 1260 he fortified the Tower, and in the winter received a visit from the king of Scotland and his daughter the queen, who came to be delivered in February 1261 of her child Margaret, afterwards queen of Norway. Meanwhile, stirred up by his queen, he was taking measures to escape from his oath. Reports of his plan were spread abroad, and he thought it advisable to shut himself in the Tower, and on 14 March issued a proclamation against those who spread false rumours. He summoned a parliament to meet in the Tower, but the lords refused to attend, except at Westminster, according to custom (Ann. Dunst. p. 217; the date of this incident is uncertain). Then he went to Windsor, and thence to Winchester, where, as it was his birthplace, he had special claims on the loyalty of the citizens, and on 24 April dismissed the barons' justiciar, and appointed Philip Basset [q. v.] in his place. The government of 1258 had