70.
**** M.West, p.

430.
He endeavored to reconcile himself with the church; took the primate again into favor,[*] made him, in conjunction with Reginald de Grey, tutor to the prince, whom he intended to appoint guardian of the kingdom during his absence; and he even assembled a great number of the nobility in Westminster Hall, to whom he deigned to make an apology for his past conduct.

He pleaded the urgent necessities of the crown; his extreme want of money; his engagements from honor as well as interest to support his foreign allies; and he promised, if ever he returned in safety, to redress all their grievances, to restore the execution of the laws, and to make all his subjects compensation for the losses which they had sustained.

Meanwhile, he begged them to suspend their animosities; to judge of him by his future conduct, of which, he hoped, he should be more master; to remain faithful to his government, or, if he perished in the present war, to preserve their allegiance to his son and successor.[**] There were, certainly, from the concurrence of discontents among the great, and grievances of the people, materials sufficient in any other period to have kindled a civil war in England: but the vigor and abilities of Edward kept every one in awe; and his dexterity in stopping on the brink of danger, and retracting the measures to which he had been pushed by his violent temper and arbitrary principles, saved the nation from so great a calamity.

The two great earls dared not to break out into open violence: they proceeded no further than framing a remonstrance, which was delivered to the king at Winchelsea, when he was ready to embark for Flanders.