writers is hard, for if they tell the truth they provoke men, and if they
write what is false they offend God." With all the fulness of the school of
court historians, such as Benedict and Hoveden, to which in form he
belonged, Matthew Paris combines an independence and patriotism which is
strange to their pages. He denounces with the same unsparing energy the
oppression of the Papacy and of the king. His point of view is neither that
of a courtier nor of a churchman but of an Englishman, and the new national
tone of his chronicle is but the echo of a national sentiment which at last
bound nobles and yeomen and churchmen together into a people resolute to
wrest freedom from the Crown.


[Sidenote: Wales]

The nation was outraged like the Church. Two solemn confirmations of the
Charter failed to bring about any compliance with its provisions. In 1248,
in 1249, and again in 1255 the great Council fruitlessly renewed its demand
for a regular ministry, and the growing resolve of the nobles to enforce
good government was seen in their offer of a grant on condition that the
great officers of the Crown were appointed in the Council of the Baronage.
But Henry refused their offer with scorn and sold his plate to the citizens
of London to find payment for his household. A spirit of mutinous defiance
broke out on the failure of all legal remedy. When the Earl of Norfolk
refused him aid Henry answered with a threat. "I will send reapers and reap
your fields for you," he said. "And I will send you back the heads of your
reapers," replied the Earl. Hampered by the profusion of the court and the
refusal of supplies, the Crown was in fact penniless; and yet never was
money more wanted, for a trouble which had long pressed upon the English
kings had now grown to a height that called for decisive action. Even his
troubles at home could not blind Henry to the need of dealing with the