PARLIAMENT ARRANGES FOR THE INTERREGNUM (1272).
Source.—Annals of Winchester, p. 113. (Annales Monastici, vol. ii.—Rolls Series.)
In this year, after the Feast of S. Hilary, when an assembly of all the prelates and other magnates of the kingdom had been summoned to Westminster, after the death of the illustrious King Henry, there gathered together the Archbishops and Bishops, Earls and Barons, Abbots and Priors, and from every county four knights and from every borough four, all of whom, in the presence of the lords Walter, Archbishop of York, Roger Mortimer, and Robert Burnell, clerk, who presided in the place of the lord Edward, King of England, took an oath to the said lord Edward as ruler of the land, and undertook to carry out the commands of the King for the faithful and strict keeping of the peace in the kingdom. Lord Walter of Merton was appointed Chancellor, to remain at Westminster, as a place of public resort, until the arrival of the King. It was further provided that there be no justices itinerant before the King's arrival, but only justices "de Banco."