A Simon de Montfort Timeline
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Sunday April 10, 2005
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1208(?) |
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Born, third son of Simon de Montfort,
count of Evreux, at Montfort l'Amoury |
Simon the elder had led a crusade
against the Albigensian heretics in the south of France and had secured a
reputation for greed and brutality |
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1230 |
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Came to England to claim the earldom of
Leicester. He was welcomed by Henry III, King of
England |
Second and third sons
- often wandering landless freelances - were a perennial problem in the
middle ages |
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1238 |
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Married Eleanor, the King's beautiful
widowed sister, a love match that turned into a lifelong partnership.
The marriage took place secretly in the royal chapel and led to protests
from the King's council. |
They had six children:
- Henry (1238-65)
- Simon (1240-71)
- Amaury (1242-1300[?])
- Guy (1244-92[?])
- Richard (b. 1252[?])
- Eleanor (1258[?]-1282)
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Eleanor was the young widow of William
the Marshall, earl of Pembroke. She had professed an intention to
enter a nunnery (so the archbishop complained about the marriage, too) |
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1239 |
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First quarrel with Henry, reasons
unknown |
Simon and Eleanor fled to France |
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1240-42 |
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Went on crusade and built a high reputation as a soldier |
Simon developed a growing interest in
religion, particularly through his friendships with Adam Marsh (a
Franciscan Friar) and with Robert Grosseteste (Bishop of Lincoln) a
scholar with a particular interest in Christianity and society) |
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1248 |
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Another crusade was planned to the Holy
Land but Simon was appointed to be Governor of Gascony, a troublesome English
province in south-west France |
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-1252 |
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In Gascony Simon developed a reputation
as an energetic and forthright campaigner and administrator. His
energetic military campaign to control the province offended many Gascons
who complained to Henry. Henry recalled Simon |
Simon stood accused of treason in a
trial before the Lords that ended in a confrontation with the King.
The charges were serious but, at the end, Henry withdrew them.
Personal tension remained between Simon and Henry |
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Simon thought that Henry was ineffective
as a King, mean (both as a King and as a head of a family) unreliable as a
person and too fond of personal power. For his turn Henry thought
that Simon was arrogant, selfish, ambitious, grasping and disloyal |
In the
mid-1250s |
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There was renewed unrest among the
barons, especially because of Henry's unrealistic and expensive ambitions
to secure influence on the Sicilian succession (to secure the crown for
his son Edmund). |
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At the 1258 Parliament in Oxford the
King wanted a vote of money but the barons united in opposition and the
"Provisions of Oxford" were the result: the barons were to share the
exercise of the King's power, to appoint the King's Council and to
supervise his officers |
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Simon swore an oath with six other
barons. The wording of this oath is unclear but it seemed to promise
to fight until the King's power was reduced. Simon followed this to
the letter. The struggle over the new rules intensified as Henry
tried to evade them wherever possible and to cancel them if he could.
Simon was determined to enforce them and the other barons changed sides in
a shifting pattern of allegiance |
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1258-64 |
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The rules were generally kept between
1258 and 1261, were not kept from 1261 to 1263 and the struggle was
renewed in 1263-4 |
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1264 |
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Civil war between the royalist and the
Montfortians. the Montfortians won the Battle of Lewes taking Henry,
Edward and many other prisoners |
Simon now ruled through the King and
tried to make the rules permanent e.g. through the expanded parliament of
January 1265 |
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However, Simon was not strong enough
after Lewes while the Marcher lords remained a powerful force. Simon
quarrelled with the other barons especially Gilbert de Clare, earl of
Gloucester and the younger Montfortians offended many other barons |
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News reached Simon of the threat of a
royalist invasion through Pembroke. He hurried to Hereford to
observe, negotiate if possible or fight if necessary |
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1265 |
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Edward escaped from Earl Simon's custody
and allied with de Clare of Gloucester and Mortimer of Wigmore |
Civil war began again |
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The final resting place of earl Simon's remains is not
known. After his defeat and death at the Battle of Evesham Simon de
Montfort's corpse was beheaded and quartered and the severed members were
distributed among the victors to parade round the country. The monks
of Evesham recovered earl Simon's torso from the battlefield and interred
it in front of the high altar in the abbey church. However, it soon
began to form the focus of a cult of Simon de Montfort, unofficial saint,
and was removed on the orders of the King. We have no record of
where it was reburied and no indication of what happened to the severed
limbs and head. |
