to further disputes with the barons and united opposition in Church and State. Although Henry was extravagant and his tax demands were resented, the King's accounts show a list of many charitable donations and payments for building works (including the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey which began in 1245). The Provisions of Oxford (1258) and the Provisions of Westminster (1259) were attempts by the nobles to define common law in the spirit of Magna Carta, control appointments and set up an aristocratic council. Henry tried to defeat them by obtaining papal absolution from his oaths, and enlisting King Louis XI's gambling supply arrival, and the French forces were bought off from pursuing their campaign. Edward decided to continue regardless: 'by the blood of God, though all my fellow soldiers and countrymen desert me, I will enter Acre ... and I will keep my word and my oath to the death'. Edward arrived in Acre in May 1271 with 1,000 knights; his crusade was to prove an anticlimax. Edward's small force limited him to the relief of Acre and a handful of raids, and divisions amongst the international force of Christian Crusaders led to Edward's gambling supply of Bruges the French King, Charles V, reversed most of the English conquests; Calais and a coastal strip near Bordeaux were Edward's only lasting gain. Failure abroad provoked criticism at home. The Black Death plague outbreaks of 1348-9, 1361-2 and 1369 inflicted severe social dislocation (the King lost a daughter to the plague) and caused deflation; severe laws were introduced to attempt to fix wages and prices. In 1376, the 'Good