A.D. 1246. THE KING ADDEESSES THE PARLIAMENT. 261 quite unprecedented, he unjustly usurped the territories of David, the nephew and vassal of the lord the king of England, and only allowed him to hold it on condition of paying a heavy tribute. And he caused the lord the king to be cited, in order that he might make answer to some charges and make satisfaction to the aforesaid David for some injuries, which, as the pope pretended, had been inflicted on him by the king; a deed which excited the contempt and hissing, and derision of many persons. And soon after, the aforesaid David, being taken from among men, had at his death but few mourners, as he deserved for his treason. Therefore, as the royal edict commanded, the nobles of England assembled from all quarters, in order to take prompt and effectual counsel touching the aforesaid matters, as the necessity, which was not light or unimportant, required. But in the middle of Lent, namely, when the anthem " Rejoice, Ο Jerusalem," as has been mentioned before, is sung, the nobility of the whole kingdom having been duly summoned, met in a general parliament, in order to consider, as the urgent necessity of the case required, of the state of the now tottering kingdom. For the intolerable grievances which were incessantly inflicted on them vexed all men, both nobles and prelates, because they could not endure it any longer without imminent ruin, aud branding themselves with cowardice. And they were especially harassed and wounded in their minds, because the pope, forgetting, or rather openly violating his promise, which he had made to the English in the council, plundered the kingdom of its treasures in a more tyrannical manner than before. Accordingly, at the opening of this parliament the king first of all with his own mouth addressed the bishops by themselves, then the earls and barons, and after them the abbots and priors, on those topics of complaint, because of which he had sent formal ambassadors from himself to the council of Lyons, and he displayed to them some deeds of indulgence and papal letters which the said ambassadors had brought back, relating to the moderating of those acts of oppressions, and he told them what favourable promisee the pope had made to the said ambassadors on behalf of the king and kingdom. But because, after all the before-mentioned indulgences and promisee, the lord king found, as, indeed, he had heard was commonly the case, and as he afterwards