An English nobleman, statesman and soldier of French origin, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, (c1208-65) wrote his name large not only on the history of the Cotswolds but also so far as the national story was concerned; he’s the man oft dubbed: ‘The Father of Parliamentary Democracy.’
For someone like me, brought up and schooled in the Vale of Evesham, the story of de Montfort is very pertinent.
Born in Montfort l’Amaury in Normandy, with siblings Amaury and Guy, he was the son of Simon de Montfort, the 5th Earl of Leicester (c1160-1218), and Alix de Montmorency.
A Norman crusader, the 5th Earl undertook in 1208 the crusade against the Albigenses, a Christian movement declared heretical by the Catholic Church, and then fell at the Siege of Toulouse in 1218. It would be the younger Simon’s destiny to also fall in battle. The young Simon was well received by King Henry III of England when he landed in the country in 1230, by which time he was in his early-twenties. He was confirmed in his title and estates in 1232 (he had a claim through his grandmother to the Earldom of Leicester), and then in 1238 the by-then 30-year-old Simon married the King’s youngest sister, Eleanor of England (1215-75), making the King and his subject brothers-in-law.
Simon’s seven children from this marriage were: Eleanor, named after de Montfort’s royal wife; Simon the Younger; Henry; Guy; Amaury, named from de Montfort’s birthplace in France and his own brother; Richard and Joanna. The relationship with the King was always a volatile one and Simon quarrelled with Henry in 1239, despite being formally invested in his title of Earl of Leicester, and headed off to France. However, they quickly reconciled and he was back once more in England by 1242 and served the King in Poitou the same year.
In 1248 Simon was sent to Gascony as the King’s Deputy or Lieutenant where he put down any disaffection with an iron fist. However, his jealous master listened readily to any complaints against him and duly arraigned him – which means he was summoned him to court to hear charges laid against him in the midst of a revolt against his administration.
Earl Simon was acquitted yet nevertheless quit his post in 1253, which may be a euphemism for forced to resign, and returned again to England. It was an unhappy country that he came back to, one that was worn down by bad harvests and resultant famine, fresh exactions coming from Rome, and the aggressive greed of foreign favourites of the King; the place was becoming ripe for someone to rally homegrown opposition against misrule. In 1258 at Oxford, the Parliament drew up the Provisions of Oxford, a set of constitutional reforms that severely limited Henry’s power yet which the King had no choice other than to swear he would comply with. There had been a first-rate baronial revolt, led by de Montfort who’d emerged as the leader of the reform party and one of the 24 who’d drawn up the Provisions, which introduced regular parliaments and created a new Council of 15 barons to effectively manage the King, as well as expelling the hated foreign advisers.
Henry must have been fulminating, if not loudly, then certainly under his breath. The barons quarrelled among themselves though and the King took the opportunity in 1261 to announce that the Pope had declared in his favour that the Provisions were null and void. All men save a few now looked to Earl Simon as leader of the barons, and indeed the embryonic nation, to right this apparent wrong. Simon was not found wanting and immediately took up arms against his King.
After some varying of success, both sides actually sought arbitration through Louis IX of France who determined in the Mise (settlement) of Amiens on January 23,1264 that the King’s cause was good and that the barons should therefore submit to the royal authority. This failed to settle the dispute and was therefore certainly not the end of the matter as London and the Cinque Ports repudiated the ‘agreement’, the barons rose in armed revolt, and Earl Simon, gathering his forces, surprised the King’s Army at Lewes on May 14, 1464, a baronial victory which saw both King Henry and his son and heir, Prince Edward – the future Edward I – captured. The subsequent Mise of Lewes saw Henry ceding many of his powers to de Montfort who would be briefly de facto ruler of the country although the King remained on the throne. The Mise stated that there would be three electors, one of whom was Earl Simon, who in turn would appoint nine councillors to then nominate the ministers of state. It was an early example of collective and delegated responsibility. If Magna Carta, 50 years previously, had been the first occasion a King had his powers reined in, well, this was a pretty good attempt at the same thing. To aid the councillors in their task, a Parliament was summoned which would incorporate not just the influential barons, bishops and abbots, but also four knights from each shire, and for the first time there would be two representatives from certain towns (or phrasing it another way, burgesses from certain boroughs). This was the most representative Parliament called to date, a model parliament if you like, and the one that led to de Montfort being hailed as the ‘Father of Parliamentary Democracy’ in this country.
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The Earl’s constitution was premature, however, a vision ahead of its time, and the barons soon grew discontented with the governance of ‘Simon the Righteous’, his sons’ own arrogance undermining his influence.
Prince Edward, escaped from captivity, now led the royal fightback and reprisal. Combining with the Earl of Gloucester, one of the three electors who’d now defected, Edward hunted down his quarry. Simon de Montfort earns his place as a Cotswold Great because of his end. His march from Worcester took him through Kempsey on August 2 where he crossed the Severn with the King still his prisoner. On the morning of the following day, de Montfort took mass in Kempsey’s church before proceeding on to Evesham where he made camp in a loop of the Avon. His plan was to rendezvous with Young Simon and then defeat Prince Edward with overwhelming strength, however, Young Simon had been caught with his pants down at Kenilworth on August 1.
The army that approached from the north was not his son’s but that of Edward who now had de Montfort where he wanted him, trapped in a loop of the river, the royal army blocking its escape north.
Simon de Montfort died on August 4, 1265, in the thick of the Battle of Evesham and during a ferocious thunderstorm to boot, when young Prince Edward’s cunning outdid the wily old fox de Montfort; it was a case of the protégé getting one over his mentor. The battle has been much written about and has been reappraised in recent times. However, the mystery still remains as to how the Earl allowed himself to be so outwitted that he was slain, as was his son Henry, with some 18 barons, 160 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms also paying the ultimate price for a failed rebellion. That battle, such as it was, lasted three hours. Some said it was more murder than battle. One thing we know is that it was not the de Montfort way to quit the field of battle so it appears that Earl Simon eschewed the opportunity to make his escape across the solitary bridge crossing of the Avon at Evesham (where today’s Workman Bridge is), preferring instead to fight and die with his troops.
About one mile north-west of the town on the Worcester Road lies the Abbey Manor, which probably dates to around 1817-18, which is surrounded by peaceful, pleasantly wooded gardens containing an obelisk commemorating the appalling battle that was fought nearly six centuries before.
There’s also the folly Leicester Tower of 1842 which commemorates de Montfort, ‘the father and founder of the British House of Commons.’ It was on the slopes here where some of the heaviest fighting took place and where Edward’s hit-squad caught up with Earl Simon and did its worst. Defeated, killed and butchered he may have been, but his cause lived on for Prince Edward, his nemesis, summoned his own Model Parliament in 1295 in a case of gamekeeper turned poacher. The rest as they say is mere history.
In 1965, 700 years after the battle, a new stone was unveiled in Evesham’s Abbey Gardens in memory of de Montfort. It’s believed to be on the site of his original grave which had been lost at the Dissolution. The Speaker of the House of Commons and the Archbishop of Canterbury were both present, as was your scribe, aged just eight.
Some 50 years later, in 2015, the Battle of Evesham Festival commemorated the 750th anniversary. I was happy to be present at the festival’s launch the previous year and then to give a couple of talks in a yurt on the Crown Meadow over the festival weekend in which I examined both the battle and de Montfort’s place in history..
CHRONOLOGY
‘The barons soon grew discontented with the governance of “Simon the Righteous”’
c1208: Birth of Simon de Montfort in Montfort l’Amaury in France.
1218: Death of Simon de Montfort’s father, the 5th Earl, at the Siege of Toulouse.
1230: Simon arrives in England and is well received by King Henry III.
1238: Marries the King’s younger sister, Eleanor of England.
1239: Simon is formally invested in the title of Earl of Leicester but quarrels with the King.
1242: Is back in England, reconciled with Henry, having served him in Poitou.
1248: Sent to Gascony as the King’s Lieutenant where his methods provoke rebellion.
1253: Earl Simon resigns his post although he’s acquitted of the charges against him.
1258: The Provisions of Oxford sees the King’s powers curtailed and de Montfort to the fore.
1261: The King, backed by the Pope, declares the Provisions null and void.
1264: Simon captures the King and his son and heir at Lewes.
1265: Death of Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham on August 4.
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