He was himself a grandson of Henry the Third and not far from the succession to the throne.

Had Earl Thomas been a wiser and a nobler man, his adhesion to the cause of the baronage might have guided the king into a really national policy.

As it was his weight proved irresistible.

When Edward at the close of the Parliament recalled Gaveston the Earl of Lancaster withdrew from the royal Council, and a Parliament which met in the spring of 1310 resolved that the affairs of the realm should be entrusted for a year to a body of twenty-one "Ordainers" with Archbishop Winchelsey at their head.
[Sidenote: Edward and the Ordainers] Edward with Gaveston withdrew sullenly to the North.

A triumph in Scotland would have given him strength to baffle the Ordainers, but he had little of his father's military skill, the wasted country made it hard to keep an army together, and after a fruitless campaign he fell back to his southern realm to meet the Parliament of 1311 and the "Ordinances" which the twenty-one laid before it.