In Our Time - The Second Barons' War

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the years of bloody conflict that saw Simon de Montfort (1205-65) become the most powerful man in England, with Henry III as his prisoner. With others, he had toppled Henry in 1258 in a secret, bloodless coup and established provisions for more parliaments with broader representation, for which he was later known as the Father of the House of Commons. When Henry III regained power in 1261, Simon de Montfort rallied forces for war, with victory at Lewes in 1264 and defeat and dismemberment in Evesham the year after. Although praised for supporting parliaments, he also earned a reputation for unleashing dark, violent forces in English politics and, infamously, his supporters murdered hundreds of Jewish people in London and elsewhere.With David Carpenter Professor of Medieval History at King’s College LondonLouise Wilkinson Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of LincolnAndSophie Thérèse Ambler Lecturer in Later Medieval British and European History at Lancaster UniversityProducer: Simon Tillotson

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programmes if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoyed the programmes. Hello, in 1258, English barons toppled Henry III in a secret bloodless coup. The next decade saw new parliaments with broader representation than before and witnessed some of the bloodiest battles since 1066 in what became

known as the Second Baron's War. Simon de Montfort was the noble behind the best of that time and the very worse of that time, with some seeking to sanctify him and others remembering the dark forces he unleashed, not least his persecution of the Jews. He's been called the father of the House of Commons.

With me to discuss the Second Baron's War are David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History at King's College London, Serveterres Ambler, a lecturer in medieval history at Lancaster University, and Louise Wilkins Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Lincoln. Louise Wilkinson, Henry III had been crowned at Gloucester Cathedral in 1216 when he was nine years old. How would you describe his reign up to the 1250s?

Well, the first part of his reign was really dominated by the great ministers who'd served his father, and it wasn't until 1234 that he moved out of their shadows and began to embark upon a period of personal rule. Henry as a ruler was a deeply pious king, but he was also a. politically naive, unfortunately. And his reign was marked very much by the tremendous generosity that he showed towards his relatives and those of his wife, Eleanor of Provence. He'd married Eleanor in 1236 and the Queen's arrival in England had been accompanied by an influx of her relations, her Savoyard kin. Henry welcomed these Savoyards, bestowed upon them lands and offices and the arrival of the Salpherads was then followed in its turn in 1247 by the arrival

of yet another group of relations this time the king's own half-siblings they were the children of Isabella of Angolm his mother by her second marriage to Hu de Luzignon and these Luzignonkin came to Henry and were welcomed with open arms so you would you describe it as a country that began to split into factions because of that? Yes, absolutely, right at the very centre at the Royal Court. The Luzignans were young and quite volatile, so they really were quite a destabilising influence on English politics in this period. You talked about his piety. He was rebuilding Westminster Abbey.

Yes, absolutely. He embarked upon a major rebuilding programme at Westminster. He actually spent rather a lot of money on it, more than 40,000 pounds, which was absolutely huge in the period. He was personally very devoted to the cult of St Edward the Confessor, hence his interest in Westminster where the confessor was buried. He became dramatically short of funds in the 1250s. Can you outline the reasons for that? So poor old Henry's revenues had been eroded by inflation.

They'd also been eroded by grants of lands by earlier kings, and they were eroded by his generosity towards the Luzignans and the Savoyards. In addition to this, he embarked upon a series of expensive building schemes. Westminster Abbey was just one part of this. He also rebuilt numerous royal palaces. And he also was involved in some quite expensive foreign policy initiatives. And perhaps the most notorious of these was actually when he accepted an invitation by the Pope in 1254 to purchase the throne of Sicily for his younger son, Edmund. and this was really just an extraordinary scheme

because Henry was expected to go to Sicily and conquer it from its present ruler and later he was also made to promise to pay the Pope £90,000 and immense sum of money to cover the Pope's own expenses incurred in Sicily and this scheme was just treated with absolute dismay at home in England barons could not believe that Henry had agreed to this? So he was buried down on funds and then we, Sophie Hambler, we enter Simon de Montford.

What was his background? Well, really quite different from Henry III. Simon de Montfort was a similar age to Henry. He was born in around 1208 in the Montfort family lands outside of Paris. His father, Simon de Montfort, the elder, was elected leader of the Abigensian crusade against the so-called cathar heretics in the south of France. And this is how Simon spent the first 10 years or so of his life growing up in a war zone where his father was leading the expedition in concert with his mother and his brothers. This came to an end in 1218 when Simon the elder was killed at the siege of Toulouse. And thereafter, Simon was very much raised back in the Montfort family lands.

with the memory of his father ever present. How was it that Simon de Montfort came to England? We should stress that there was a great movement between French nobility coming over to England and English nobility who had lands in France, the conquest had spilled over in both ways. But how did Simon Montfort and when did he come to England? Well, yes, this background of the cross-channel nobility was an important one for Simon de Montfort's

career because his father held a family claim to the Oldham of Leicester. And so when Simon came of age 1229, 1230, he came to England to press this claim to the Leicester Oldham. He was rather surprising that he got it, wasn't it? Yes, indeed. So he did very well to stake his claim to the Oldham. He raised himself partly through becoming close to Henry III at court. marrying the king's sister, Eleanor, helped a great deal in elevating his position. But also throughout the 1240s and into the 1250s, he really made his reputation not just within England, but internationally. So coming from this family of crusaders, he was very keen to take part in a crusading expedition himself. He took part in an expedition known as the Barron's Crusade, which wasn't particularly.

successful, but actually resulted in an invitation for Simon to become regents of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. David Carpenter, why did Henry III accommodate Simon DeMondford give him so much leeway and later regret it so bitterly? Yes, I think you're right that Henry subsequently regretted it a great deal and he's quoted at one point saying, I repent nothing so much as having established you in England. I think it seemed very different in the 1230s when Montfort first made good his claim to the earldom of Leicester. I mean, Henry could perfectly well have said, get lost. You know, it's a very vestigial claim.

I've got nothing to do with it, in which case, of course, Montfort would never have got established, never have married the King's sister. But I think you've got to think about what Montfort was like and what Henry was like in those 1230s when they were both still in their 20s, still both comparatively young men. I mean, as Sophie said, Montfort was the son of heroic father. world famous father, he had tremendous personal gift. He was highly intelligent. He was silver-tonged, persuasive. He was deeply pious and highly determined. Mottford has a heart of steel, whereas Henry has a heart of wax. You know, what's Henry like? Well, he's indulgent, profligate to those he loves. So Henry is just bowled over by this young man, much the same I didn't think Henry had had close friends of his own age, of his status up till then, and Montfort seemed to be it. So Henry thinks, you know, gosh, this person is going to be a tremendous support to me, a pillar of myself and the regime, he is now tied in by marriage to my sister.

So I think that's how it started, that sort of golden start. And when the first child is born at Kenilworth, Henry hurries to Kenilworth for the birth and Stan's godfather and Montfort's first child is named Henry after the king. So that's how it starts, but subsequently, the relationship becomes very, very fractious. And Montfort finds, I think, cooperating with Henry very, very difficult. He has a contempt for him. Both men were very religious. We've mentioned Henry's religion, rebuilding the Abbey, or building it up again.

But De Montfort was hair shirts, praying all night. friend of archbishops and bishops and all the rest of it. Can you develop that a bit? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right there that these two men are deeply pious, but in very, very different ways. Montfort is very, very close to people associated with the friars, Adam Marsh, Robert Grosthes. There's something very austere hair shirt about his piety, whereas nothing like that with Henry. There are no stories of personal austerities with Henry. It's an expansive form of piety in which he feeds. Heeds hundreds, thousands of porpoise. He spends huge amounts of money building Westminster Strabi.

And so these are two people very different. Why did Simon De Montfort and the Baron's topple Henry III in 1258? And how difficult was it? Well, I think Louise has set much of the background there. There were terrible factional struggles at court between the King's Poitavian Halfbrothers on the one hand and virtually everybody else. and in the end a group of barons of whom Montfort himself was very prominent, just had had enough of the Lucinians, the Poitavans.

They turned on them in a court revolution and expelled them from England. He was toppled by a march on the King's Hall at Westminster, the great hall that survives to this day. And you know, Henry Quavers and says, What is this, my lord? Am I your prisoner? And they say, no, but you're Johnny Well going to get rid of the Lusinians, the half-brothers and the realm is going to be reformed. And then we had the provisions of Oxford, Louise.

How were their defining moment? And can you tell us why they mattered? Well, the provisions of Oxford were the reforms that the barons imposed upon Henry during this revolution in 1258, the revolution that David's just outlined for us, and they were truly important. They were so radical in their nature.

England hadn't seen anything like them before. So under the terms of the provisions of Oxford, basically executive power was removed from Henry. A council of 15 was to be appointed to supervise the work of central government, if you can imagine. And so the King's chief ministers were to be appointed by this council with their approval. They were also to be supervised by it. And crucially, the royal chancellor was no longer permitted to seal role charge. or writs unless he had the permission of the council. So poor old Henry under these reforms was basically reduced to a puppet king in many ways.

One of the things that I really like about the provisions of Oxford though is the way that they reinvigorated a very important government office called the Office of Justiciere or Chief Justice. It was the role of the Justiciah to go out on circuit around the country to hear the subjects complaints against Henry III and to dispense justice. So justice was truly being taken out into the localities. And he was given a very sort of specific remit to listen to complaints relating to the abuses of royal government officials in the localities and also abuses perpetrated by the baron's own men. I agree with you so much. I think that was so absolutely vital

and so utterly unique the way the reforms of 12. 1258, encompassed not just the officials of the king, but also the officials of great men. It's as though the baronia leaders saying, we've sinned two, and we're going to do something about it. And there's nothing like that in 1215. And I wonder what you think of, and whether Montfort is really very, very key to that unique feature of these reforms. Yes, absolutely. I think Montfort was really committed to them personally. In other aspects of his life, we do see him at times as quite self-interested and self-serving. He was very concerned to get more lands and provisions for his family.

But actually, when it comes down to the provisions of Oxford, he remains committed to them, I think, quite throughout the whole conflict that erupts later. Sophie, how much support did Simon DeMond really have in England at this time, at the provisions of Oxford? Well, as David described, he was part of this small group of barons and some churchmen as well who seized power in 1258, this sworn confederacy who toppled Henry III. But beyond this, throughout his career, he could rely on the committed support of a core group of friends and loved ones, chief among them his countess, Eleanor, who Louise has written about and their sons,

leading churchmen, particularly Water to Cantaloupe Bishop of Worcester, and before 1258, Robert Grostestest, the great bishop of Lincoln, who died shortly before the coup, but also baronial supporters and very close friends like Hugh De Spencer, Peter de Montfort, no relation. This group was to be absolutely critical throughout the course of his career and stuck with him through thick and thin right to his death. Why did tensions descend into outright and bloody war?

Well, in 1261, Henry recovered power, basically because of baronial divisions. And Montfort withdrew to France. He wouldn't accept the King's recovery of power and the overthrow of the provisions of Oxford. That might have been the end of it, had it not been for catastrophic mistakes made by Henry and even more by his son, Lord Edward, because Edward quarrelled with his closest followers a group of very warlike violent men, John Dooren, Earl of Surrey, Roger of Labourne, Roger of Clifford, Hey, Mola Strange, this group. And Edward threw them out of his service. And they thought the only way we can get back in, have revenge, is to bring Montfort back and ally with him, reassert the provisions of Oxford, punish our enemies.

In a way, that makes the Montfort sound passive. but he'd been working for this hour. And Montfort came back, I think, and from that moment on, was he is the sole leader of the movement against the king. I suppose thinking about it, I think he had three things which made him that. The first was that he had nailed his colours to the mast.

He was the only great man who had refused to accept the king's recovery of power. He'd made it clear he'd only come back to England if the provisions of Oxford are restored. Now they can. be. But also this is the return, secondly, of the general. Montfort knows how to wage war, and he knows how to bring the king down, the bring the regime down. And basically what he did was to leave, just to ravage the estates of the king and his supporters. So that was Montfort

the general. And thirdly, there was Montfort the politician. Because I had an amazing feel for what would be popular causes. And I think he's biographer. John Maddochott said of him that he was the first populist leader in English history. And what he saw was there should be one great slogan uniting the movement, and that was England for the English. And when he came back, he promulgated a statute expelling all foreigners from England, ironic because he was a foreigner himself, and a confining office to native-born men. And that keyed into huge resentment against the foreigners that Louise mentioned at the start, and also against the Queen and her party

who seem to be dominating the court. So can we come back to you, Louise? We go to the Battle of Lewis in 1264. So battle commences there. And they've been raids on each other's estates and these gangs of private armies have been roving around the place, tearing each other to bits.

Here we go, a battle. Battle of Lewis 1264. What's significant about it? Well, the Battle of Lewis is really quite an amazing. battle because it resulted in quite a decisive victory for the Montfortians. And it was fought in the Sussex town of Lewis on the 14th of May. The Montfortians were heavily outnumbered that day. They may have had just 500 cavalry compared with 1,500 cavalry on the part of the Royalists.

There were, of course, several thousand foot soldiers on both sides too. And at the end of the battle, Simon de Montfort emerged victorious. and as a result of the battle, Henry the King, Richard of Cornwall, the king's own brother, and the king's eldest son, Edward, effectively became Montfortian captives. So Henry III came into Simon de Montfort's power as a result of what happened on that day. And that was considered to be a very famous victory and well-generalled. The admiration for him went up at that stage, but can we just take a sideways step? Because one of the most notorious features of this war, if not the most notorious in these decades, was the attacks on Jews in England, massive attacks on Jews in England.

Sophie, can you tell us something about that? Yes, so Simon de Montfort was responsible for an egregious attack on the Jews of London in the spring of 1264. This was in the lead-up to the Battle of Lewis, actually, because the Montfortians needed to take Rochester Castle. they needed money to prosecute the siege. An easy target was London's Jewish community. So an attack was launched. The property, the wealth of London's Jews was seized. But this very quickly became a bloodbath.

Perhaps 400, perhaps 500 people in London were killed by Montfortian troops. The money was handed over to Simon to help him prosecute the siege of Rochester Castle. And this action was in no way condoned or supported more widely. Chronicle's writing about this incident looked on in absolute horror. But at the same time, there is a broader background here to anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages and in England in particular in the 13th century, where the persecution of the various Jewish communities in England had been increasing. And this was partly the result of change.

church legislation brought in in 1215 by the Pope, which decreed there should be segregation between Jews and Christians. England's government introduced very shortly afterwards a ruling that decreed that Jews should wear a special badge to mark them out as separate. And so when Simon de Montfort set up home in England, one of the first things that he did in Leicester was actually to expel the Jews from the ville of Leicester. And in doing so, he was acting, I suppose, partly in the spirit of the time, very much endorsed and probably encouraged by local churchmen, particularly his great friend Robert Grosstest,

who was then Dean of Lincoln, later Bishop of Lincoln. And we can also bring in Henry III too. And David has written about Henry's relationship with the Jews. Jews. So there's a story about taxation where Henry took tens of thousands of pounds from the Jews of England in this period, presided over large-scale conversion of the Jews. There was also a notorious incident in the mid-1250s where Henry ordered the execution of many Jews from the city of Lincoln who were accused of the murder of a child. So throughout the 13th century, we can see the increase of governments or sort of state powers and the church in persecuting Jews across Europe,

but also in England we do see these flashpoints of violence. So the execution of the Jews in Lincoln seems to be in the start of the idea of the blood libelers. Can you develop that? The terrible events at Lincoln, what had happened was that a young Christian boy was found down a well and his mother said the Jews have captured this boy and they crucified him in macabre imitation of the crucifixion of Christ. And this becomes generally believed in Lincoln. There's a wider background in that these stories of Jews capturing little Christian boys

go back to the 12th century in England, a particular event at Norwich. And the belief gathers ground. But the church itself and kings and rulers had nothing to do with it. They wouldn't agree that this had happened. And what was terrible about the events in Lincoln was that Henry descended on the chown and was persuaded that this had actually happened.

The result was that 18 Jews were executed. And Henry is the first king, therefore, to officially sanction the belief that Jews do this. This is the blood libel really getting momentum as a result of Henry III. So I think you've got to put Montfort's persecution of the Jews in that wider context. Henry III, too, is very much to blame in stoking up the fires of hatred against the Jews. Thank you.

Can you tell us why Simon and Montfort is known as the father of the House of Commons, David? Well, the reason for this is that Montfort's great parliament of January 1265 was certainly the first parliament to which represented from the counties, knights representing the counties, burgesses representing the towns, were summoned. So it's the first Parliament with, if you like, the House of Commons on Embryo. And no one's been able to show differently. And that was a big change because in 1258, the Parliament envisaging the provisions of Oxford had no representatives like that. It was an entirely magnate parliament.

And I think it was Montfort between 1248 and 1265 who drove forward the concept of summoning representatives. So Monfort had that wider vision. The reason probably was practical politics in that he realised his magnet's support was increasingly limited. Where's he going to get the support? From magnets, the great lords. Yeah, the great lords are more and more disaffected with Montfort, hatred of him. Where's Montfort going to get support? He's going to get it from the counties and the towns and therefore bring them to Parliament. How did it alienate this power group that You're talking about charismatic, charming, persuasion, and then the most powerful group he alienates. How did he manage to do that?

Well, that's not an unknown feature in history, and that there are some charismatic leaders who are inspire intense loyalty amongst followers, but can't get on with equals, let alone superiors. And I think a lot of the great barons found Montfort's pious, imprecations, self-righteousness, absolutely in total. horrible. And in the end, I think it came down to who would you prefer King Simon or King Henry. And I think most people in the end preferred King Henry. I think that's so right. And you can see throughout Simon's career, he has a very domineering personality where he doesn't suffer fools. And I don't think that always helps him to make friends in difficult situations. But I think we also have to bear in mind the radicalism of the

regime that the Montfortians had set up. So the idea of effectively removing the king from power, setting up a council to govern the kingdom, this was entirely radical, it was shocking, it made people incredibly uncomfortable, hence all of the efforts the regime went to, including in that parliament to persuade people and to come on board. Louise. So Sophie and David both mentioned how Simon de Montfort alienated key, magnate support. And in particular, Simon alienated the support of the Earl of Gloucester. This was Gilbert Declare, and he was one of the wealthiest nobles in England. And this was critically important because by the spring of 1265, Gilbert de Clare had travelled to the Welsh barches.

And shortly afterwards, towards the end of May, the Lord Edward Henry III's eldest son, who was a Montfortian captive actually engineered with the help of the Claire family a remarkable escape from Hereford. And there's a wonderful account of this in some contemporary chroniclers. And Edward is described going out from Hereford to exercise some horses with his captors. And then he tried each horse in turn, testing their calibre and their speed. And finally only one fresh horse remained. And Edward galloped off to freedom, bidding his former captors farewell. and he did so with the help of Thomas Declare Gilbert's brother. And soon after this, Edward was able to raise royalist forces in the West, in the Welsh marches,

to begin to recover his father's throne. And Edward was a formidable warrior who was in his 30s, he was experienced, he was big, strong, and quite ingenious in the way he got away on the only fresh horse. The church is powerful at this time. What role did it take at this pivotal time in the conflict? Well, the church was absolutely critical in two ways. Within England, Simon enjoyed the support of a number of bishops, monastic houses, friars. And so these bishops and other churchmen set about constructing arguments to justify this new Montfortian regime after the Battle of Lewis. So they were important ideologically there, also important in preaching across the country in order to win their hearts and minds. of the wider populace. But on the other hand, from an international point of view, the church was also important because the Pope was against the Montfortian regime. As soon as

Henry recovered power in the early 1260s, he was able to explain to the Pope exactly what had happened in 1258. And immediately the Pope quashed the provisions of Oxford and quashed all of those oaths that bound people to the provisions because it was all illegal and threatened to overturn the very order of society. According to the Pope. Well, according to the Pope, but according to canon law, very much so, if you extort an oath from somebody under duress, as was done to Henry III and 1258, it can't be a legally valid oath.

So that's the Pope's justification. But also, the violence of the Montfortian regime was important here too. the Pope actually allied with the King and Queen of France in 1263, 1264, when this violence broke out across England, to set about restoring Henry III to power. They were absolutely appalled by what had happened, both the violence but also what the Montfortians were trying to achieve in essentially pushing kingship to one side.

So the Pope's idea was that actually, if it came to it, the King and Queen of France could provide the military support needed to Henry. This army from France could have the endorsement of being proclaimed a crusade. And in the event, the Montfortians didn't have to face that threat, but had things gone differently, they might well have done. So David Carpenter, we're going to head for the Battle of Evesham now in 1265, which was the climax, although not the end, the climax of this bloody conflict. And I think we can dwell on the bloodiness a bit here, but it was exceptional.

The bloodiest since the Battle of Hastings and in many ways completely awful. Right, David. Yeah, it was very different from the great battles of the 12th and 13th century before then, where most nobles simply surrendered. They were very rarely actually killed. They were prevented from being killed by their armour, and so they just surrendered. A great Battle of Lincoln in 1217.

only one nobleman was killed and everyone was very sorry about it. Evesham was totally different. And a contemporary chronicler, Robert O'Grustard, so rightly said, described it as the murder of Evesham, for battle was there none? The royalist forces, Edward now part of them, very much so, get together and in great force outflank, out-general, Simon, for the first time he's been out-general,

and they're waiting for him on a hill, above Evesham and he far fewer forces and nadia yet he decides to go for battle with them. Yeah, what happened was this, that on the 3rd of August the two armies were very close together, just outside Worcester.

Montfort has the miserable captive king with him. Edward and Gilbert O'Clair Earl of Gloucester are commanding the opposition forces. And Montfort has a strategy. He hasn't given up. He thinks, I'll march through the night, give Edward the slip, go to Evesham,

and then the next day I'll march north and join up with my son bringing forces from Kenilworth. But for once Montfort was out-generalled and Edward followed him during the night and when dawn broke at Evesham Edward's forces were arrayed on the hill, green hill above Evesham,

blocking the way north to Cannellworth. Now then there were desperate discussions in Evesham Abbey where Montfort was as to what to do. Some people wanted for flight, the leaders could have escaped across the bridge at the other end of Evesham. Montfort wouldn't have had absolutely nothing to do with that. And in a heroic way, he was reported as saying that chaplains are for churches, the battlefield is for knights, out we go to

fight. Now, I think there may be differences of view there. And I know Sophie, I think got a different view for me here. I think Montfort to the end believed in his cause and thought, my son may well arrive, I may still win a miraculous victory against the odds. But his son didn't arrive. And of course, then the murder took place up on the hill above Evesham. Let's talk about Sophie, what you have to say before we talk about the murder. Yes, I think I completely agree with David that Simon absolutely believed in his cause. But I think I suppose it's also important to understand his mindset. And remember that he and his men saw this as a crucible. They had been signed with the cross as crusaders in 1264 and fought as crusaders at the Battle of Lewis.

And so there were also crusaders at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. And in this case, death is not necessarily a defeat. In the sense, the death one dies as a sworn crusader. That is a type of martyrdom. It assures the deceased of a place in heaven. His father had been killed as a crusader. his brothers had been killed as crusaders, his uncle, two had been killed as a crusader.

So actually there is a way of looking at things from his point of view, which says that to die in this battle as a sworn crusader is a type of victory. Can we come back to you for a moment, David, about the bloodiness in the battle. I think you need spare nothing. Yeah. Montfort's body was not, he was not merely killed, his body was horrifically mutilated in utter contempt for him. So his head was cut off, his testicles were cut off, they were stuffed into his mouth, and then they were hung either side of his nose. And in that condition, the head was sent to Lady Mortimer at Wigmore, who Montford had earlier insulted.

I think this was not merely barbarism. It was politically calculated to show the utter contempt for Montford and everything he'd done and reflect the humiliation he'd imposed on the king and Edward. I think it was also coolly calculated in another way because there was no tradition in England of political executions. So if Montford had survived the battle and his closest followers had survived, not quite clear what would have happened to them. and whether they could actually or would have been simply executed. So it was far better to actually kill them, murder them on the battlefield.

I think the site at Evesham on that evening, that August evening, with the bodies all laid out with the horrible wounds, must be absolutely terrible. And I think Evesham still resonates with the horror of those events. And this is a new type of battle, therefore, and points on to the battles of the later Middle Ages. where of course nobles were killed out of hand. I think one of the most shocking aspects of Evesham was this slaughter of noblemen which was entirely new, as David had said. But I think it's also worth noting just how many foot soldiers were killed as well

and the way in which they were killed. Because a large part of the Montfortian contingent seems to have been Welshmen provided by Simon Zalari, Llewellyn at Griffith. Who made up a large proportion of the casualties, but also his own supporters from England. But many of those were killed Seeking Sanctuary in Evesham Abbey, and they were cut down there by royalist troops,

which again was a horrific site that the chroniclers at Evesham described in absolutely appalling detail. So I think... Describes, doesn't it, Ghossovier, how the blood ran down from the child. into the crypt below through the flagstones. It's absolutely horrific, wasn't it? Louise, come and come.

So the battle's over. Monfort's destroyed. His army is destroyed. How did Henry III handle the peace settlement? I think he handled it quite harshly, actually, and quite badly in many ways. Peace wasn't fully restored to England until really sort of well into 1267.

And what happened after Evesham was the royalists literally across the country pillaged the estates of rebels. They were then officially confiscated their estates by the Crown. And this created a whole body of disinherited men across the kingdom. And so isolated pockets of guerrilla warfare, not altogether surprisingly, continued in many places. So for example... For about two years. Yes, absolutely. in places like the Isle of Axholm in Lincolnshire, also in the Isle of Ely, and also at Kenilworth Castle, which had been a key Montfortian fortress.

There the rebels endured a long siege from June 1266 all the way through to December 1266. I mean, I suppose sort of some good news in a way was that the king did produce a modified form of the settlement. This was called the dictum of Kenilworth in October 1266. but actually this was still quite a harsh settlement. What it did was it allowed former rebels to recover their estates provided they paid quite high fines. And these fines were capped at, can you believe it, seven times, the annual value of their lands.

And actually these terms were seen as incredibly oppressive. And it wasn't till Gilbert DeClair actually stepped in in the summer of 1267, occupied London, himself feeling a bit disgruntled with how the royalists had treated him, although he'd been loyal to them. And he actually managed to push a more moderate form of the dictum of Kenilworth. And he got the crown to agree that rebels could now recover their estates

before they paid their fines. So at least they had some chance of paying their fines. And in fact, it looks like many rebels did. What happened to the provisions of Oxford? The provisions of Oxford were dead in the water. literally died. But another aspect of the reform program called the provisions of Westminster, which had addressed various sort of detailed legal, political and administrative reforms, and which really benefited the localities were reissued in 1267, in an amended form in the Statute of Marlborough.

So this, at least, this aspect survived. David Carpner, what was the longer legacy of this almost decade of revolution and bloody warfare? Well, I wish I could be positive about it. I mean, I think it was a horrific period between 1263-67. And while I would have thoroughly supported the reforms and the revolution of 1258, I don't think Montfort was right in coming back in 1263 in the way he did. So in that respect, and we've reflected on the violence, the violence to the Jews, and the violence to wide sections of society, death, destruction. And as Louis said, it achieved absolutely nothing. The provisions of Oxford were a dead letter.

On the other hand, I think we can be positive in that I think Montfort's whole career between 1258 and 1265 was one of widening the political community. This goes down to peasants who believed in the community of the realm. You get peasants fighting each other, peasant boys fighting each other, pretending on the one to be Edward, one to be Simon de Montfort. The whole political community has expanded. People know what's going on. And that's the base for the summoning of representatives to Parliament in 1265. And I think that certainly did accelerate the role of Parliament for good. or ill in English political life.

So I think there was an important legacy. Finally and briefly, first Louise and then you, Sophie, how would you rate, as it were, to Montfort from your perspective today? Well, I admire his idealism and commitment to the reforms. I think there are deeply problematic aspects of his behaviour and what he did. So I don't rate him very highly at all, I'm afraid. Sophie? Well, I agree with both David and Louise, I think partly because of the extraordinary violence that Simon de Montfort brought with him that was incredibly troubling. On the other hand, I can see from the point of view of his supporters, and I think it's important to remember the extraordinary devotion that he brought out in his supporters, the charisma which he carried.

So this sense really amongst his supporters that he was sent by God and leading this righteous cause. And there was a move to make him a martyr, wasn't it? Well, he was seen by many as a saint in the years following his death at the Battle of Evesham. And in fact, one could say that the gruesome desecration of his body at the battle in some ways served the burgeoning cold of Simon de Montfort quite well because those body parts could then be seen as relics. Yeah, I mean the posthumous cult was quite extraordinary, and in the end, Henry had to stamp it down and get the body move from the trunk of the body was buried at Evesham, all kinds of miracles, people pilgrimages to Evesham.

And in the end, Henry III ordered the body to be dug up again and basically just thrown away. And that was a way of ending the cult once and for all. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, David Karmter. Louise Wilkinson, Sirfier-Terez-Ambler, and to our studio engineer, Sue Mayo. Next week, it's to search for longitude in the age of sail, the key to exploring the oceans. So thanks for listening.

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What did you really want to say you didn't have time to say? Do you want to start, Sophie? One thing we didn't have the chance to talk about was the very important part played by various noble women and queens in this period. Eleanor of Provence, of course, Henry III's queen, but also Eleanor de Montfort, who Louise has done a lot of work on,

who was very much Simon's right-hand woman throughout the latter and critical part of the conflict. Yes, she absolutely was. We have a remarkable surviving household role for her for the year 1265, and Eleanor basically held a series of important castles in the south of England for the Montfortian cause. She acted as a relay station providing information between different supporters and members of her family. And she actually held Dover Castle and withstood a siege there until she surrendered it in October 1265 and went into exile in France. Dover was one of the key fortresses in England in this period. It was the castle that Henry III spent the most money on during his reign.

And the fact that she held the castle and was able to negotiate her own safe exile into France from there is really quite remarkable. And I think it's worth just also bearing in mind what happened to the rest of the Montfort family after Simon's death at the Battle of Evesham. So we know, for instance, that one son Guy was taken captive at Evesham, but he was later able to escape to the continent. Another son, Simon Jr., also similarly, was later able to escape to the continent. Eleanor's younger sons, Amory, who was a cleric, and Richard, also were actually smuggled out of England,

probably with the help of their mother. And the family's wealth went with them as well, because Henry wrote a furious letter to the king to Louis 9th of France complaining about all the cash they'd taken with them. When Eleanor left over, she was also accompanied by a little daughter, a young girl who was her namesake, Eleanor. And this Eleanor actually went on

to marry Llewellyn Ab Griffithus, the great Prince of Wales, later in her life. And she didn't have an easy life at all. When she left France in the 1270s to go and marry Llewelyn, she was captured by Henry. the third son who was now King Edward I first and she was held as a prisoner until Llewellyn agreed terms with him and then Edward presided over the wedding ceremony so really the Montfords did not have a

happy time of it in the long run and I mean the episode that typifies the misery I think that the family felt after they had to leave England is the murder of Henry of Almein who was the nephew of King Henry the 3rd the son of Richard of Cornwall at Viterbo in 1271. Edward, Henry the third son, sent Henry of Almain as a peace broker to treat with the Montfort sons who were then in Italy.

Guy and Simon learned that Henry was saying mass in a church at Viterbo. They charged into the church and they brutally murdered him. And this caused shockwaves throughout Europe. Simon ended up sort of going into hiding and the other son Guy escaped was communicated for his role

and later ended up in prison. So it really was an awful affair the murder at Viterbo. And it shows you the bitterness between the families. Yeah, I mean, I quite agree about all of that and particularly about the importance of women. I mean, there are two strong women here,

aren't there right at the top, the Queen Eleanor of Provence, who's very much responsible for the collapse of royal power in 1262, 3. And then Eleanor De Montfort, on the other hand, And then, of course, Roger Mortimer's wife, who receives Montfort's head, you know, she clearly played a big part in enraging the supporters of Henry and Edward. I suppose there were one thing I thought we didn't quite bring out was Montfort's material grievances. I mean, I think his idealism came out very well.

And I do believe that. I think he did believe very strongly this was a righteous cause. But obviously we didn't really sketch out why he felt so badly treated by Henry when it came to the lack of being, the lack of a land in the state to go with the marriage to Eleanor. And also all the, perhaps just as well we didn't go into all the detail of the Dower. Because Eleanor de Montfort was the widow of William Marshall Earl of Pembroke, was entitled to a third of his lands for the rest of her life. and the Montfort's constantly complained they'd never received them.

So it was those two material grievances which played a large part in, I mean, in Montfort's antagonism to Henry and his role in the revolution of 1258. And they also helped to explain why he was so keen to gather lands as soon as he took control in 1264. Yes, and of course Sophie's also helped to explain that too in terms of the family, isn't it? There's so many sons he's got to find landed estates for.

I think you can also, I suppose, if you try to put yourself in his shoes, although that can sometimes be an unpleasant task, if he had learned anything from his father's expedition on the Abigensian Crusade, it was the precarious nature of leadership when a leader didn't have a huge landed base. So the Abigensian Crusade was an extraordinarily, expensive expedition, which the Montfort could ill afford, but also could collapse without this longer-term financial stability. And I suppose from Simon de Montfort's point of view, he could make two arguments, one that he was owed a lot of land by Henry personally, but also that his regime

in order to operate in the long term needed this much stronger income. On the other hand, one can easily say that these seizures of land were absolutely illegal and in fact contravene Magna Carta quite clearly I think the longer term is a fascinating question actually and I often wonder how Montfort saw the future in 1265

I sort of feel he must have known this regime is unsustainable with having to keep Henry captive Edward captive and I sort of feel towards the end in 1265 he was working towards a situation in which he would become King, King Simon, and that Henry might be deposed, Edward might be killed in another war. I don't think he regretted the outbreak of another war.

I think he thought he would win it, and then he would become king. But I don't know what you think about that. The difficulty with that as well, I mean, you can really see, I suppose, especially in the period after Lewis, that he might have seen himself as the all-conquering and really imagined that there was an opportunity for this regime to last in the long term as well. The difficulty was that he had,

particularly the barons of the March of Wales, haranguing him from one side, but also the threat of invasion from France again. So we have the situation in 1264 after Lewis where the Queen of England has raised an armada which could potentially sail to put Henry III back in power. In the end, it doesn't sail. But then had the Montfortians won the Battle of Evesham,

I always imagined that what would happen next, well, the Pope would once again ally with the King and Queen of France and with the Queen of England to bring an army across the channel, sanctioned as a crusade to put Henry the third back in power. And did the Montfortians ever have? a real hope of staving off that kind of of military threat, I'm not sure. I don't know. I agree.

I don't think the regime would have lasted long, but I think that, I think Montfort would have gone for it, that we would have had King Simon. I suppose I'd like to use that modern term. I'd like to put a shout out here for Henry III himself, because I think it is important that no, you know, there was a move to depose King John, wasn't he? John was actually deposed in 1215. There was never a formal move to depose King Henry.

And I think that was because of a very general awareness that however simplex he may be, however foolish, he was a good and pious man, and he was a rex-Christianismos. He'd built Westminster Abbey. So in a way, Henry's survival, it isn't just due to Lord Edward and Gilbert Declare. I think he owed his survival a great deal to himself.

Do you think he owed it to him? his behaviour earlier in his captivity. Because one of the things I've been wondering about is actually whether while Henry's a captive, he actually displays some quite sort of good political capabilities in his ability actually just to keep his head down, focus on his piety. And actually he's not at any point an obnoxious, difficult, challenging captive, is he? No, no, no. I mean, he was made to cooperate with the regime.

In fact, there's contrast with 1258. 1258, he was just ignored in 1264-5. Montfort made him cooperate with the regime. I don't know. I agree. I mean, I think Henry's party remained very conspicuous during the Montfortian regime. It was the only thing which was still visible.

I think Sophie's shown at the great parliament of 1265. Henry's hardly visible at all. I think though people also, don't you think, in that period, would have looked back on his reign. look back at a long, long period of peace for which Henry, in all that propaganda, was always taking credit for it, wasn't it? You know, I have given you all these years of peace. And it was true.

There had been a long years of peace. You might say it was peace sometimes with injustice, peace with foolish patronage to foreigners. But nonetheless, you know, it was peace from 1216 all the way through to Montfort coming back as that dark force, Sir Morris Poick. And Melbourne referred to that in the introduction, and some of his poet called him that first in 1263. One of the things I've often wondered about is the hatred that the Lord Edward,

or Edward Henry the third son, exhibits towards Simon de Montfort personally. If that's how we interpret him sending a death squad against him at Evesham, handpicked soldiers to massacre him. Yeah, we should have mentioned that, shouldn't we? That actually the murder of Montfort was quite deliberate and that this squad of soldiers had been appointed to actually kill him in the battle.

There was to be no mistake about it. And I wonder if actually part of that comes from actually his own personal experiences, but also his immediate familial experiences, because Edward was married to Eleanor of Castile in this period, who wasn't treated particularly well during the sort of captivity phase. She didn't have adequate funds for her household, and she seems to have lost a child. And we know that Edward was thoroughly devoted to her,

certainly later in life. they spent a lot of time actually travelling together and may have had in the end as many as up to 16 children. And I do wonder whether there's a real element of personal hatred on Edward's part towards Henry III by the end. Because of the way Montford had treated his wife. I'd never thought of that before. It's fascinating. As well, yeah. No, I do wonder about that.

I think it's perhaps worth picking up a little bit on Edward I first as well. And we talked about the longer term legacy, but the longer term, legacy in the reign of Edward I. Because you can see in his antipathy towards Simon de Montfort, both the personal insult in having his land seized for the Montfort family is part of that, but also the trampling on the English crown, the absolute humiliation to which not only he and his father had been subjected, but the monarchy itself as well.

We can also perhaps bring in Simon Demonts' alliance with the Welsh and the concessions that he made to Wales, which elevated the principality in an entirely new way in a way that he really had no right to do, not being king. And it's always a little bit slightly dangerous territory to get into when we start asking about the sort of psychological impact of these things, isn't it? But I do wonder whether Edward's actions as king in Wales and also in Scotland can partly be,

traced back in some way to the humiliation the English crown and was forced to suffer under Simon DeMondford, this idea of raising the English crown back up, but also creating this dominance over England's neighbours. Thank you all very much indeed. In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. And if you're looking for the In Our Time on the First Baron's War,

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