T.F. Tout - The History of England

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Once more a baronial committee put the royal authority into commission,
and ruled England through ministers of its own choice. While agreeing
in this essential feature, the settlement of 1264 did not merely
reproduce the constitution of 1258. It was simpler than its forerunner,
since there was no longer any need of the cumbrous temporary machinery
for the revision of the whole system of government, nor for the
numerous committees and commissions to which previously so many
functions had been assigned. The main tasks before the new rulers were
not constitution-making but administration and defence. Moreover, the
later constitution shows some recognition of the place due to the
knights of the shire and their constituents. It is less closely
oligarchical than the previous scheme. This may partly be due to the
continued divisions of the greater barons, but it is probably also in
large measure owing to the preponderance of Simon of Montfort. The
young Earl of Gloucester and the simple and saintly Bishop of
Chichester were but puppets in his hands. He was the real elector who
nominated the council, and thus controlled the government. Every act of
the new administration reflects the boldness and largeness of his
spirit.

The pacification after Lewes was more apparent than real, and there
were many restless spirits that scorned to accept the settlement which
Henry had so meekly adopted. The marchers were in arms in the west, and
were specially formidable because they detained in their custody the
numerous prisoners captured at the sack of Northampton. The fugitives
from Lewes were holding their own behind the walls of Pevensey, though
Earl Warenne and other leaders had made their escape to France, where
they joined the army which Queen Eleanor had collected on the north
coast for the purpose of invading England and restoring her husband to
power. The papacy and the whole official forces of the Church were in
bitter hostility to the new system. The collapse of Henry's rule had
ruined the papal plans in Sicily, where Manfred easily maintained his
ground against so strong a successor of the unlucky Edmund as Charles
of Anjou. The papal legate, Guy Foulquois, was waiting at Boulogne for
admission into England, and, far from being conciliated by his
appointment as an arbitrator, was dexterously striving to make the
arbitration ineffective, by summoning the bishops adhering to Montfort
to appear before him, and sending them back with orders to
excommunicate Earl Simon and all his supporters. The only gleam of hope
was to be found in the unwillingness of the King of France to interfere
actively in the domestic disputes of England. The death of Urban IV.
for the moment brought relief, but, after a long vacancy, the new pope
proved to be none other than the legate Guy, who in February, 1265,
mounted the papal throne as Clement IV. It was to no purpose that
Walter of Cantilupe assembled the patriotic bishops and appealed to a
general council, or that radical friars like the author of the _Song of
Lewes_ formulated the popular policy in spirited verse. The greatest
forces of the time were steadily opposed to the revolutionary
government, and rare strength and boldness were necessary to make head
against them.

Before the end of 1264 the vigour of Earl Simon triumphed over some of
his immediate difficulties. In August he summoned the military forces
of the realm to meet the threatened invasion. Adverse storms, however,
dispersed Queen Eleanor's fleet, and her mercenaries, weary of the long
delays that had exhausted her resources, went home in disgust. This
left Simon free to betake himself to the west, and on December 15 he
forced the marcher lords to accept a pacification called the Provisions
of Worcester, by which they agreed to withdraw for a year and a day to
Ireland, leaving their families and estates in the hands of the ruling
faction.

On the day after the signature of the treaty, Henry, who accompanied
Simon to the west, issued from Worcester the writs for a parliament
that sat in London from January to March in 1265. From the
circumstances of the case this famous assembly could only be a meeting
of the supporters of the existing government. So scanty was its
following among the magnates that writs of summons were only issued to
five earls and eighteen barons, though the strong muster of bishops,
abbots, and priors showed that the papal anathema had done little to
shake the fidelity of the clergy to Montfort's cause. The special
feature of the gathering, however, was the summoning of two knights
from every shire, side by side with the barons of the faithful Cinque
Ports and two representatives from every city and borough, convened by
writs sent, not to the sheriff, after later custom, but to the cities
and boroughs directly. It was the presence of this strong popular
element which long caused this parliament to be regarded as the first
really representative assembly in our history, and gained for Earl
Simon the fame of being the creator of the House of Commons. Modern
research has shown that neither of these views can be substantiated. It
was no novelty for the crown to strengthen the baronial parliaments by
the representatives of the shire-moots, and there were earlier
precedents for the holding meetings of the spokesmen of the cities and
boroughs. What was new was the combination of these two types of
representatives in a single assembly, which was convoked, not merely
for a particular administrative purpose, but for a great political
object. The real novelty and originality of Earl Simon's action lay in
his giving a fresh proof of his disposition to fall back upon the
support of the ordinary citizen against the hostility or indifference
of the magnates, to whom the men of 1258 wished to limit all political
deliberation. This is in itself a sufficient indication of policy to
give Leicester an almost unique position among the statesmen to whom
the development of our representative institutions are due. But just as
his parliament was not in any sense our first representative assembly,
so it did not include in any complete sense a House of Commons at all.
We must still wait for a generation before the rival and disciple of
Montfort, Edward, the king's son, established the popular element in
our parliament on a permanent basis. Yet in the links which connect the
early baronial councils with the assemblies of the three estates of the
fourteenth century, not one is more important than Montfort's
parliament of January, 1265.

The chief business of parliament was to complete the settlement of the
country. Simon won a new triumph in making terms with the king's son.
Edward had witnessed the failure of his mother's attempts at invasion,
the futility of the legatine anathema, and the collapse of the marchers
at Worcester. He saw it was useless to hold out any longer, and
unwillingly bought his freedom at the high price that Simon exacted. He
transferred to his uncle the earldom of Chester, including all the
lands in Wales that might still be regarded as appertaining to it. This
measure put Simon in that strong position as regards Wales and the west
which Edward had enjoyed since the days of his marriage. It involved a
breach in the alliance between Edward and the marchers, and the
subjection of the most dangerous district of the kingdom to Simon's
personal authority. It was safe to set free the king's son, when his
territorial position and his political alliances were thus weakened.

At the moment of his apparent triumph, Montfort's authority began to
decline. It was something to have the commons on his side: but the
magnates were still the greatest power in England, and in pressing his
own policy to the uttermost, Simon had fatally alienated the few great
lords who still adhered to him. There was a fierce quarrel in
parliament between Leicester and the shifty Robert Ferrars, Earl of
Derby. For the moment Leicester prevailed, and Derby was stripped of
his lands and was thrown into prison. But his fate was a warning to
others, and the settlement between Montfort and Edward aroused the
suspicions of the Earl of Gloucester. Gilbert of Clare was now old
enough to think for himself, and his close personal devotion to
Montfort could not blind him to the antagonism of interests between
himself and his friend. He was gallant, strenuous, and high-minded, but
quarrelsome, proud, and unruly, and his strong character was balanced
by very ordinary ability. His outlook was limited, and his ideals were
those of his class; such a man could neither understand nor sympathise
with the broader vision and wider designs of Leicester. Moreover, with
all Simon's greatness, there was in him a fierce masterfulness and an
inordinate ambition which made co-operation with him excessively
difficult for all such as were not disposed to stand to him in the
relation of disciple to master. And behind the earl were his
self-seeking and turbulent sons, set upon building up a family interest
that stood directly in the way of the magnates' claim to control the
state. Thus personal rivalries and political antagonisms combined to
lead Earl Gilbert on in the same course that his father, Earl Richard,
had traversed. The closest ally of Leicester became his bitterest
rival. The victorious party split up in 1265, as it had split up in
1263. And the dissolution of the dominant faction once more gave Edward
a better chance of regaining the upper hand than was to be hoped for
from foreign mercenaries and from papal support.

Gloucester was the natural leader of the lords of the Welsh march. He
was not only the hereditary lord of Glamorgan, but had received the
custody of William of Valence's forfeited palatinate of Pembroke. He
had shown self-control in separating himself so long from the marcher
policy; and his growing suspicion of the Montforts threw him back into
his natural alliance with them. Even after the treaty of Worcester, the
marchers remained under arms. They had obtained from the weakness of
the government repeated prolongations of the period fixed for their
withdrawal into Ireland. It was soon rumoured that they were sure of a
refuge in Gloucester's Welsh estates, and Leicester, never afraid of
making enemies, bitterly reproached Earl Gilbert with receiving the
fugitives into his lands. Shortly after the breaking up of parliament,
Gloucester fled to the march, and a little later William of Valence and
Earl Warenne landed in Pembrokeshire with a small force of men-at-arms
and crossbowmen. There was no longer any hope of carrying out the
Provisions of Worcester, and once more Montfort was forced to proceed
to the west to put down rebellion.

By the end of April Montfort was at Gloucester, accompanied by the king
and Edward, who, despite his submission, remained virtually a prisoner.
Earl Gilbert was master of all South Wales, and closely watched his
rival's movements from the neighbouring Forest of Dean. It was with
difficulty that Earl Simon and his royal captives advanced from
Gloucester to Hereford, but Earl Gilbert preferred to negotiate rather
than to push matters to extremities. He went in person to Hereford and
renewed his homage to the king. Arbitrators were appointed to settle
the disputes between the two earls, and a proclamation was issued
declaring that the rumour of dissension between them was "vain, lying,
and fraudulently invented". For the next few days harmony seemed
restored.

Gloucester's submission lured Leicester into relaxing his precautions.
His enemies took advantage of his remissness to hatch an audacious plot
which soon enabled them to renew the struggle under more favourable
conditions. Since his nominal release, Edward had been allowed the
diversions of riding and hunting, and on May 28 he was suffered to go
out for a ride under negligent or corrupt guard. Once well away from
Hereford, the king's son fled from his lax custodians and joined Roger
Mortimer, who was waiting for him in a neighbouring wood. On the next
day he was safe behind the walls of Mortimer's castle of Wigmore, and,
the day after, met Earl Gilbert at Ludlow, where he promised to uphold
the charters and expel the foreigners. Valence and Warenne hurried from
Pembrokeshire and made common cause with Edward and Gilbert. Edward
then took the lead in the councils of the marchers, who, from that
moment, obtained a unity of purpose and policy that they had hitherto
lacked. He and his allies could claim to be the true champions of the
Charters and the Provisions of Oxford against the grasping foreigner
who strove to rule over king and barons alike.

Montfort's small force was cut off from its base by the rapidity of the
marchers' movements. It was in vain that all the supporters of the
existing government were summoned to the assistance of the hard-pressed
army at Hereford. Before the end of June, Edward completed the conquest
of the Severn valley by the capture of the town and castle of
Gloucester. A broad river and a strong army stood between Montfort and
succour from England. Leicester then turned to Llewelyn of Wales, who
took up his quarters at Pipton, near Hay. There, on June 22, a treaty
was signed between the Welsh prince and the English king by which Henry
was forced to make huge concessions to Llewelyn in order to secure his
alliance. Llewelyn was recognised as prince of all Wales. The
overlordship over all the barons of Wales was granted to him, and the
numerous conquests, which he had made at the expense of the marchers,
were ceded to him in full possession.

Thus Llewelyn, like his grandfather in the days of the Great Charter,
profited by the dissensions of the English to obtain the recognition of
his claims which had invariably been refused when England was united.
The Welsh prince gained a unique opportunity of making his weight felt
in general English politics, but with all his ability he hardly rose to
the occasion. Montfort had pressing need of his help. A few days after
the treaty of Pipton, Gloucester Castle opened its gates to Edward, and
the marchers advanced westwards to seek out Earl Simon at Hereford.
Leicester fled in alarm before their overwhelming forces. He was driven
from the Wye to the Usk, and, beaten in a sharp fight on Newport
bridge, found refuge only by retreating up the Usk valley, whence he
escaped northwards into the hilly region where Llewelyn ruled over the
lands once dominated by the Mortimers. Before long Montfort's English
followers grew weary of the hard conditions of mountain warfare. With
their heavy armour and barbed horses it was difficult for them to
emulate the tactics of the Welsh, and they revolted against the simple
diet of milk and meat that contented their Celtic allies. They could
not get on without bread, and, as bread was not to be found among the
hills, they forced their leader to return to the richer regions of the
east. Llewelyn did little to help them in their need, and did not
accompany them in their march back to the Severn valley, though a large
but disorderly force of Welsh infantry still remained with Simon as the
fruit of the alliance with their prince.

By the end of July, Simon was once more in the Severn valley, seeking
for a passage over the river. On August 2 he found a ford over the
stream some miles south of Worcester. There he crossed with all his
forces and encamped for the night at Kempsey, one of Bishop Cantilupe's
manors on the left bank. His skill as a general had extricated him from
a position of the utmost peril. All might yet be regained if he could
join forces with an army of relief which his son Simon had slowly
levied in the south and midlands. But his quarrel with Gloucester and
his alliance with the Welsh had done much to undermine Montfort's
popularity, and the younger Simon had no appreciation of the necessity
for decisive action. Summoned from the long siege of Pevensey by his
father's danger, he wasted time in plundering the lands of the
royalists, and only left London on July 8, whence he led his men by
slow stages to Kenilworth. On July 31 young Simon's troops took up
their quarters for the night in the open country round Kenilworth
castle. They had no notion that the enemy was at hand and troubled
neither to defend themselves nor to keep watch. Edward, warned by spies
of their approach, abandoned his close guard of the Severn fords, and
in the early morning of August 1 fell suddenly upon the sleeping host
and scattered it with little difficulty. The younger Simon and a few of
his followers took refuge in the castle. As a fighting force the army
of relief ceased to exist.

Leicester, knowing nothing of his son's disaster, made his way, on
August 3, from Kempsey to Evesham, where he rested for the night. Next
morning, after mass and breakfast, the army was about to continue its
march, when scouts descried troops advancing upon the town. At first it
was hoped that they were the followers of young Simon, but their near
approach revealed them to be the army of the marchers. With
extraordinary rapidity Edward led his troops back to Worcester as soon
as he had won the fight at Kenilworth. Learning there that Simon had
crossed the river in his absence, he at once turned back to meet him,
seeking to elude his vigilance by a long night march by circuitous
routes. The result was that for the second time he caught his enemy in
a trap.

Evesham, like Lewes, stands on a peninsula. It is situated on the right
bank of a wide curve of the Avon, and approachable only by crossing
over the river, or by way of the sort of isthmus between the two bends
of the Avon a little to the north of the town. Edward occupied this
isthmus with his best troops, and thus cut off all prospect of escape
by land. The other means of exit from the town was over the bridge
which connects it with its south-eastern suburb of Bengeworth, on the
left bank of the river. Edward, however, took the precaution to detach
Gloucester with a strong force to hold Bengeworth, and thus prevent
Simon's escape over the bridge. The weary and war-worn host of
Montfort, then, was out-generalled in such fashion that effective
resistance to a superior force, flushed by recent victory, was
impossible. Simon himself saw that his last hour was come; yet he could
not but admire the skilful plan which had so easily discomfited him.
"By the arm of St. James," he declared, "they come on cunningly. Yet
they have not taught themselves that order of battle; they have learnt
it from me. God have mercy upon our souls, for our bodies are theirs."

Edward and Gloucester both advanced simultaneously to the attack. A
storm broke at the moment of the encounter, and the battle was fought
in a darkness that obscured the brightness of an August day.
Leicester's Welsh infantry broke at once before the charge of the
mail-clad horsemen, and took refuge behind hedges and walls, where they
were hunted out and butchered after the main fight was over. But the
men-at-arms struggled valiantly against Edward's superior forces,
though they were soon borne down by sheer numbers. Simon fought like a
hero and met a soldier's death. With him were slain his son Henry, his
faithful comrade Peter Montfort, the baronial justiciar Hugh Despenser,
and many other men of mark. A large number of prisoners fell into the
victor's hands, and King Henry, who unwillingly followed Simon in all
his wanderings, was wounded in the shoulder by his son's followers, and
only escaped a worse fate by revealing his identity with the cry: "Slay
me not! I am Henry of Winchester, your King." The marchers gratified
their rage by massacring helpless fugitives, and by mutilating the
bodies of the slain. Earl Simon's head was sent as a present to the
wife of Roger Mortimer; and it was with difficulty that the mangled
corpse found its last rest in the church of Evesham Abbey. His memory
long lived in the hearts of his adopted countrymen, and especially
among monks and friars, who despite the ban of the Church, hailed him
as another St. Thomas, for he too had lain down his life for the cause
of justice and religion. Miracles were worked at his tomb; liturgies
composed in his honour, and an informal popular canonisation, which no
papal censures could prevent, kept his memory green. His faults were
forgotten in the pathos of his end. His work survived the field of
Evesham and the reaction which succeeded it. His victorious nephew
learnt well the lesson of his career, and the true successor of the
martyred earl was the future Edward I.

No thoughts of policy disturbed the fierce passion of revenge which
possessed the victorious marchers. On August 7 Henry issued a
proclamation announcing that he had resumed the personal exercise of
the royal power. The baronial ministers and sheriffs were replaced by
royalist partisans. The acts of the revolutionary government were
denounced as invalid. The faithful city of London was cruelly
humiliated for its zeal for Earl Simon. The exiles, headed by Queen
Eleanor and Archbishop Boniface, returned from their long sojourn
beyond sea. With them came to England a new legate, the Cardinal
Ottobon, specially sent from the papal court to punish the bishops and
clergy that had persisted in their adherence to the popular cause. Four
prelates were excommunicated and suspended from their functions,
including Berkstead of Chichester and Cantilupe of Worcester. But the
aged Bishop of Worcester was delivered from persecution by death;
"snatched away," as a kindly foe says, "lest he should see evil days".
His nephew, Thomas of Cantilupe, the baronial chancellor, fled to
Paris, where he forsook politics for the study of theology. The widowed
Countess of Leicester was not saved by her near kindred to the king
from lifelong banishment. At last a general sentence of forfeiture was
pronounced against all who had fought against Edward, either at
Kenilworth or Evesham. There was a greedy scramble for the spoils of
victory. The greatest of these, Montfort's forfeited earldom of
Leicester, went to Edmund, the king's younger son. Edward took back the
earldom of Chester and all his old possessions. Roger Mortimer was
rewarded by grants of land and franchises which raised the house of
Wigmore to a position only surpassed by that of the strongest of the
earldoms.

At first the Montfort party showed an inclination to accept the defeat
at Evesham as decisive. Even young Simon of Montfort, who still held
out at Kenilworth, considered it prudent to restore his prisoner, the
King of the Romans, to liberty. But the victors' resolve to deprive all
their beaten foes of their estates, drove the vanquished into fresh
risings. The first centre of the revolt of the disinherited was at
Kenilworth, but before long the younger Simon abandoned the castle to
join a numerous band which had found a more secure retreat in the isle
of Axholme, amidst the marshes of the lower Trent. There they held
their own until the winter, when they were persuaded by Edward to
accept terms. A little later, Simon again revolted and joined the
mariners of the Cinque Ports, whose towns still held out against the
king, save Dover, which Edward had captured after a siege. Under
Simon's leadership the Cinque Ports played the part of pirates on all
merchants going to and from England. At last in March, 1266, Edward
forced Winchelsea to open its gates to him. He next turned his arms
against a valiant freebooter, Adam Gordon, who lurked with his band of
outlaws in the dense beech woods of the Chilterns. With the capture of
Adam Gordon, after a hand-to-hand tussle with Edward in which the
king's son narrowly escaped with his life, the resistance in the south
was at an end.

As one centre of rebellion was pacified other disturbances arose. In
the spring of 1266, Robert Ferrars, Earl of Derby, newly released from
the prison into which Earl Simon had thrown him, raised a revolt in his
own county. On May 15, 1266, Derby was defeated by Henry of Almaine at
Chesterfield. His earldom was transferred to Edmund, the king's son,
already Montfort's successor as Earl of Leicester, and in 1267 also
Earl of Lancaster, a new earldom, deriving its name from the youngest
of the shires.[1] Reduced to the Staffordshire estate of
Chartley, the house of Ferrars fell back into the minor baronage.
Kenilworth was still unconquered. Its walls were impregnable except to
famine, and before his flight to Axholme young Simon had procured
provisions adequate for a long resistance. The garrison harried the
neighbourhood with such energy that the whole levies of the realm were
assembled to subdue it. After a fruitless assault, the royalists
settled down to a blockade which lasted from midsummer to Christmas.
The legate, Ottobon, appearing in the besiegers' camp to excommunicate
the defenders, they in derision dressed up their surgeon in the red
robes of a cardinal, in which disguise he answered Ottobon's curses by
a travesty of the censures of the Church.

[1] For Edmund's estates and whole career, see W.E. Rhodes'
_Edmund, Earl of Lancaster_, in _Engl. Hist. Review_, x.
(1895), 19-40 and 209-37.