It all happened in the thirteenth century, and while it was happening, it
shook England from north to south and from east to west; and reached across
the channel and shook France. It started, directly, in the London palace
of Henry III, and was the result of a quarrel between the King and his
powerful brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester.

Never mind the quarrel, that's history, and you can read all about it at
your leisure. But on this June day in the year of our Lord 1243, Henry so
forgot himself as to very unjustly accuse De Montfort of treason in the
presence of a number of the King's gentlemen.

De Montfort paled. He was a tall, handsome man, and when he drew himself
to his full height and turned those gray eyes on the victim of his wrath,
as he did that day, he was very imposing. A power in England, second only
to the King himself, and with the heart of a lion in him, he answered the
King as no other man in all England would have dared answer him.

"My Lord King," he cried, "that you be my Lord King alone prevents Simon de
Montfort from demanding satisfaction for such a gross insult. That you
take advantage of your kingship to say what you would never dare say were
you not king, brands me not a traitor, though it does brand you a coward."

Tense silence fell upon the little company of lords and courtiers as these
awful words fell from the lips of a subject, addressed to his king. They
were horrified, for De Montfort's bold challenge was to them but little
short of sacrilege.

Henry, flushing in mortification and anger, rose to advance upon De
Montfort, but suddenly recollecting the power which he represented, he