The Tomb of Simon de Montfort

The fate of the remains of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, has long been a mystery. Since his death at the battle of Evesham in 1265, one foot of the dismembered corpse has been confidently traced to Alnwick abbey in Northumberland, from where it disappeared, probably at the Reformation. A skull displayed in the Almonry Museum and Heritage Centre at Evesham may belong to a member of the Montfort family. Stories abound, of secret tunnels under the River Avon, and of remains collected by Montfort’s widow and interred in St Mary’s abbey, Kenilworth. In this booklet Dr Cox reviews the evidence for an alternative last resting place of Earl Simon’s bones, and outlines the circumstances under which they might be recovered and identified. A challenge thus awaits us to provide for Simon de Montfort the discovery and preservation accorded to the last Plantagenet king of England, Richard III.

£5.50

Related Topics

Gwenllian

1275... a cry for help from a woman who is kidnapped at sea. Present day. Dutch archivist Fenna van Wijk is helping architect Ned Thompson to sift through a stack of ancient papers kept in an untouched archive in an...

Osney, Wykes, Trivet & The Evesham Chronicle

Four translations of accounts of the Battle of Evesham of 1265 from Osney, Wykes Trivet and the Evesham Chronicle. All of them are important sources and extracts from them are quite often quoted or referred to by historians. Recently translated...

Simon de Montfort

Simon de Montfort was a man in pursuit of an elusive dream, a figure of paradox even today. Medieval chroniclers say that he was handsome, intelligent, fair-minded and able, but his enemies found him arrogant, cold and driven by ambition...

The Templar of Tyre

What happened to Simon de Montfort, leader of the Reformers, after his defeat at the Battle of Evesham? Was Earl Simon captured alive and later murdered? Does this explain the murder of Henry of Almain by Simon’s sons, Simon and...

Two Pilgrimages: Winchcombe and Hailes

Pilgrimage is the most essential of medieval studies – that’s a conclusion which Tim Porter has drawn from years of reading, research and exploration. Religion, politics, economics, travel, industry, art, architecture – pilgrimage opens into all these fields, and many...

Walter of Guisborough

An account of the Battle of Evesham compiled by Walter of Guisborough in the fourteenth century translated and with commentary by Tony Spicer of the Battlefields Trust.