was said to have fallen by Christmas on this account. And although this year was one full of great terrors to the Holy Land, in respect of the incursions and threats of the Tartars, still, with the exception of the mortality which took place in those lands, it was one very tolerable to the French and English. This year there died Walter, bishop of Durham, Ethelmar, bishop elect of Winchester, William de Beauchamp, earl of Albermarle, Roger de Turkelbi, earl of Bedford, Henry de Ba, the justiciary of the lord the king, John de Crakehaie, his treasurer, and Stephen Longsword, justiciary of Ireland, with the addition of a great many others, whose memory and whose number can be preserved by God alone. CH. XVIII.—FBOM A.D. 1261 το A.D. 1263. Henry violates the provisions of Oxford—The pope is afraid of an invasion of the Tartars—Prince Edward espouses the cause of the barons—The earl of Leicester forms a confederacy against the king—Prince Edward invades Wales —Treaty between the king and the barons—The civil war breaks out again, and is continued with great fierceness— The quarrel is submitted to Louis of France, who decides in favour of the king. Of the fineness of the weather about Christmas. A.D. 1261, and the forty-fifth of the reign of king Henry the Third, the said king celebrated the feast of the Nativity at Windsor, with his own queen, and his daughter, the queen of Scotland, who was staying there, waiting for the time of her confinement. There was also there, Richard, king of Germany, who had lately returned with unexpected rapidity into England, but his queen had all the time stayed uninterruptedly at Berkhampstead. And at this season, there was such unbroken fine weather and softness in the air, that you would have said that it was the pleasant time of summer rather than winter. And about this time an event took place which was strange, and which seemed more and more marvellous to all who heard of it. For two persons, who had not undeservedly been committed to perpetual imprisonment, namely, Roger de Clare and John Ealriche, when one had been confined in Newgate and loaded with chains eighteen years, and the other more