So he went into the garden and plucked plums and took out of them the
steles [stalks], and did venom in them each one; and he came before
the king and sat on his knee, and said:

'Sir, by St. Austin, this is fruit of our garden.'

Then the king looked evilly on him and said, 'Assay them, monk!'

So the monk took and ate thereof, nor changed countenance any whit:
and the king ate thereafter.

But presently afterwards the monk swelled and turned blue, and fell
down and died before the king: then waxed the king sick at heart,
and he also swelled and died, and so he ended his days.

For a while after the death of John and the accession of Henry III.
the Baronage, strengthened by the great Charter and with a weak and
wayward king on the throne, made their step forward in power and
popularity, and the first serious check to the tendency to
monarchical bureaucracy, a kind of elementary aristocratic
constitution, was imposed upon the weakness of Henry III. Under this
movement of the barons, who in their turn had to seek for the support
of the people, the towns made a fresh step in advance, and Simon de
Montfort, the leader of what for want of a better word must be called
the popular party, was forced by his circumstances to summon to his
Parliament citizens from the boroughs. Earl Simon was one of those
men that come to the front in violent times, and he added real
nobility of character to strength of will and persistence. He became
the hero of the people, who went near to canonizing him after his
death. But the monarchy was too strong for him and his really