Parliament in the Middle Ages

by Susan Appleyard

Parliament was the feeble offspring of the Magna Carta. ‘No taxation without representation.’ That was the slogan of a later age and a different country, but it serves here. Magna Carta was forced on King John by the barons, and what the barons meant by representation was… well, themselves, plus some of the more prominent landed knights. The barons were serving the commonwealth of the realm which was… well, themselves.

Nevertheless the weakling child that had been born in a meadow near Runnymede, despite lack of nurturing, survived and was given an infusion of vitality in 1265 by Simon de Montfort.

Simon de Montfort

His father of the same name was the one who did such sterling service for the Catholic Church during the Albigensian campaign. De Montfort junior is credited with being the Founder of Parliament, but his motives were far from altruistic. He was a rebel who seized power from King Henry III after his victory at the battle of Lewes. But his position was tenuous. To gather more support for his cause, he summoned burgesses from all the major towns, as well as the barons and knights who had previously counseled the king. It was the creation of a new limb: the Commons.

Under Henry’s son, Edward I, the calling of parliament became a more frequent event. In the thirty-five years of his reign, parliament was summoned no less than forty-six times. Nor was Edward’s motive altruistic. He needed money to pursue his Welsh and Scottish wars. The Commons had not yet learned that they could say ‘No, Sire,’ or perhaps they were a little overawed by him, but they did soon learn that if they voted the King money they could get something in return.

16th-century illustration of Edward I 

presiding over Parliament 

To summon parliament writs were sent out from the chancery instructing the sheriffs of each county to hold a county court for the election. Freemen who owned freehold land worth 40 shillings a year could vote. Two knights of the shire were elected from the thirty-seven counties in England, and two burgesses were elected from every town that had the right to send members to parliament enshrined in its charter, as many as two hundred and twenty-two.

Inevitably there were abuses and fights aplenty. A man who thought he had a good chance of being elected and took along some friends for support would swiftly change his mind when he arrived and found the door blocked by a rival who had even more friends. In 1362 deputies of the sheriff of Lancaster returned themselves without consulting the constituents.

John Paston got into a fight at the shire house with the sheriff, Sir John Howard, and was twice struck by a dagger. Members were supposed to live in the borough, but sometimes nobles and knights would invade a town, bringing along their own candidate and forcing the voters to elect him. Or a local baron would send along his thugs to make sure the candidate who best supported his interests was elected. Some of the great nobles didn’t have to resort to strong-arm tactics; they simply let their wishes be known, and it was done. These practices were particularly prevalent during the War of the Roses.

The money was good: four shillings a day for the knights; two shillings for the burgesses. Not bad when the average daily wage for a peasant was two pennies. The financial burden fell on the shires and the boroughs.


By the late middle-ages the Commons had won some clout. They made laws and they made kings. And they unmade some kings too.

For more information visit:
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/birth_of_parliament_01.shtml


This Editor's Choice from the EHFA Archives was originally published on May 24, 2015.
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Susan Appleyard is the author of numerous work of historical fiction. Her latest release is Bonfire of the Perfect: The Albigensian Crusade. See all Susan's works at Amazon.

Connect with Susan
Blog: https://susanappleyardwriter.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susan.appleyard.9
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mexisue1

Giving it and taking it back - the complicated case of Whilton manor

by Anna Belfrage

In 1264, William de Whelton faced something of a conundrum. He wasn’t alone. England was at war, on the one side Simon de Montfort seemed to be carrying the day, on the other King Henry III and his son, the future Edward I, claimed hereditary right to rule. In between were all those men who were fast approaching a point at which they had to choose sides. Sitting on the fence was not an option, not when the rattling of swords and lances clearly proclaimed the conflict was about to turn bloody. Very bloody.

William lived in Northamptonshire. He was the proud owner of four manors which in this case made sitting things out even more of an impossibility. He was simply too important to be allowed to remain neutral. In William’s region, the flamboyant Earl of Leicester threw the longest shadow and to stand in opposition against de Montfort while surrounded by his allies would likely have resulted in a very short lifespan. Plus, it is probable William agreed with the Provisions of Oxford—even saw Simon as something of a refreshing counterbalance to the weak king, so dominated by his French half-siblings and his wife’s Savoyard kinsmen.

To choose wrongly came at a price. Whoever ended up on the losing side could say bye-bye to whatever manors they might have had. This may be the reason behind William’s decision regarding his manor at Whilton. Maybe he was hoping to safeguard something for the future by granting the manor to his second son. Or maybe it was as simple as William wanting Nicholas de Whelton to have his own land and by granting him the manor in his own lifetime he could bypass the laws of inheritance that would otherwise have seen all his belongings pass to his eldest son.

To ensure his second son had property was also a way to facilitate Nicholas’ search for a bride. At the time, Nicholas had found a bride and as Joyce la Zouche came from a powerful family I imagine her father would have insisted on Nicholas having something to his name so as to safeguard Joyce’s future dower income should Nicholas predecease her.

Whatever the case, in 1264 William undertook a number of actions whereby he transferred ownership of Whilton to Nicholas. In return, Nicholas granted William full rights of usage for the rest of William’s life, i.e. any incomes deriving from the manor would still end up in William’s purse. But formally the manor would belong to Nicholas. Well, it would do once Nicholas had taken seisin of it.

To take possession of land—delivery of seisin—was a rather formal affair. Not so that it required a lot of written documentation. No, delivery of seisin was all about actively doing a number of things. In view of future events, a written document would not have been a bad idea, but in 1264 William saw no reason to have his clerk put quill to parchment. After all, he knew exactly what the next steps were.

First of all, William had to visibly transfer ownership. This was done by a ritual whereby William led Nicholas up to the main entrance of the manor and placed his hand on the door hasp, thereby “giving” him the door and all the contents within. Then he presented Nicholas with a branch of a fruit tree to show that Nicholas now had the right to make use of everything that grew on the manor. Finally, once he’d done this, William waved “bye-bye” to his son (and Joyce, one presumes) and left Nicholas to formally take possession.

Taking possession in this case meant Nicholas remained at Whilton for two weeks or so, very much behaving like the lord of the manor. He burned wood, he took oaths of fealty from the tenants and did some fishing—all of this to show he was entitled to use the land as he saw fit.

Two weeks later, William returned and now it was Nicholas’ turn to grant the manor back to his father for life. After all this seisin stuff the manor was formally Nicholas’ and once William was dead the full use of the manor would revert to Nicholas, not to big brother Roger who, according to the laws of primogeniture that were applied to everything to do with land, otherwise would inherit. As an aside, it is interesting to note that William could never have written a will in which he left one of his manors to Nicholas as this would never have been recognised as a valid transfer of land, not when there was an older brother. But gifting land in your own lifetime was okay.

Anyway: to really seal the deal William then persuaded his eldest son Roger de Whelton to sign a quitclaim, a document in which he accepted his father’s gift to his younger brother. After all this, Nicholas was now safely in possession of Whilton—well, so one would think.

All William’s careful planning proved totally futile after August 1265. At the Battle of Evesham Simon de Montfort was killed and all those fighting for him were branded rebels, their lands forfeited. William and his sons had been fighting for Simon and so the de Whelton family suddenly found themselves without any manors at all. A most dire situation and had it not been for the fact that they were not exactly alone—many, many were the men of noble birth who were suddenly rendered destitute, thereby becoming a potentially dangerous and destabilising influence on society—this story would have ended there.

However, eager to bring peace and stability to his realm, King Henry approved the Dictum of Kenilworth. This allowed for the rebels to buy back their lands with a hefty fine. Yes, things would be tight for some years, but most who could leapt at the opportunity. So did those who did not have the money at the ready but hoped to somehow finance the repurchase of their hereditary lands. Among them was William. Not among them was Nicholas, who had sadly passed away, leaving a young widow and a very young daughter.

Oh, dear. Suddenly, gifting Whilton to Nicholas appeared a very, very bad idea. William never expected his son to die that young—or to leave an infant girl as his heir. This was all very bad for the de Whelton family as Nicholas’ widow, Joyce, could claim a third of the income from the manor for life. And as to baby Felicia, well she was now the ward of William’s overlord (although the lord in this case was a lady) and her two-thirds of the income would end up in the hands of said lord. Instead of setting his son up for life, William had managed to lose control over 25% of his total income.
If we’re going to be correct, at the time Whilton was still under attainder as William had not managed to raise the money to cover the fine. This, however, was just a temporary setback. The gifting of Whilton was a much more permanent setback. The future of the de Whelton family now depended on whether the gift was valid yes or no.

Joan de Stuteville was the overlord of Whilton and thereby automatically became Felicia’s guardian. The baby was whisked away to be raised in Joan’s household and Joyce returned to her father, there to prepare for her next marriage. She was young, she was fertile and in possession of an annual income of 8 pounds or so from Whilton—assuming the gifting of the manor to Nicholas was considered legal.

Joan de Stuteville was all for upholding the gift. After all, this gave her access to Felicia’s inheritance for well over a decade.

In all this upheaval, William de Whelton died, still without having paid the fine. It fell to his eldest son, Roger, to finalise these matters. Roger was short of money and when Joyce’s father approached him with a plan, he therefore listened.

William la Zouche was determined to do his best for his recently widowed daughter. In this case this meant negotiating a good second marriage for her and to do so it would help if Joyce brought a nice chunk of property to her new husband.

La Zouche’s plan was simple: Roger was to claim his father’s grant to Nicholas was invalid. Thereby, Whilton reverted to Roger. La Zouche would lend him the money Roger required to pay the fine and in turn Roger would name William la Zouche his heir for Whilton—and for his other three manors. Effectively, la Zouche was cheating little Felicia out of her inheritance to boost his daughter’s marital prospects. He sugar-coated the offer by throwing in some land which would pass from Roger to “heirs of his body.” If no such heirs existed, this land would revert to la Zouche.

All very complicated, isn’t it? The end result was that Joyce became quite the catch. She’d bring four manors to her future husband rather than a paltry eight pounds a year. Roger would be able to pay the fine, end up with some land and have use of the manors for his life. Felicia would be left disinherited and dependent on the goodwill of her relatives. In view of how they were all acting—her maternal grandfather, her paternal uncle, even her mother—this was not a good thing for Felicia.

One major hurdle remained for Roger. He had to prove his father’s grant of Whilton was invalid. To do so, he examined just what decisions Nicholas took during those fifteen days in which he’d been in possession of Whilton prior to re-granting it to William. Turns out burning wood and taking oaths was not enough. Nicholas should have ordered a field to be ploughed or had a pig slaughtered or fired the reeve. Nicholas did none of this. Had he lived it would never have mattered. Now, however, he was as dead as a rock and the one paying the price for his ploughing negligence was his little daughter.

For years, the dispute was brought before various assizes and juries. The fact that Roger had signed a quitclaim was neither here nor there—unless Nicholas had properly taken possession, the document was irrelevant. For years, Felicia’s guardian defended the rights of her ward against Felicia’s family and stepfather.

In 1273, Joyce remarried. Her new groom was Robert de Mortimer and he was determined to see his wife recognised as heir to those four manors. After all, he hoped she would give him a son, a boy to inherit those nice, fat livings. At the time, Felicia (well, her guardian, seeing as Felicia was at most eight) was in possession of Whilton. Some months later, her representatives were ejected by the Mortimers who now claimed they had seisin of the manor.

The Court of Common Pleas

Once again, the case was dragged before the assizes. One judge gave Felicia the right of it, another ruled in Joyce’s favour. Somewhere along the lines this had become a mother-daughter fight, something which must have soured their relationship permanently. Back and forth went the rulings until, in 1280, the courts handed down a final verdict: Roger de Mortimer and his wife Joyce were to be considered rightful owner of Whilton. Felicia had lost it all: her father, her lands and, one assumes, her mother—and all because her father had been somewhat remiss in claiming possession.

Things did not end here. Once Felicia married, her husband was as determined as de Mortimer to get his hands on Whilton. What then followed is probably the longest ever land dispute in English history, stretching all the way from 1264 to 1380. Along the way a wife would poison her husband, cousins would marry cousins and one judge after the other would be presented with a case where the stack of documents grew into a huge tottering pile. How it all ended? Well, I am happy to report Felicia’s descendants won out—but that, I think, is the subject for a future post.

All pictures in public domain and/or licensed under Wikimedia Creative Commons

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Had Anna Belfrage been allowed to choose, she’d have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does not exist, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with The King’s Greatest Enemy, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimer’s rise to power. And yes, Edmund of Woodstock appears quite frequently. The first book, In The Shadow of the Storm was published in 2015, the second, Days of Sun and Glory, was published in July 2016, and the third, Under the Approaching Dark, was published in April 2017. The fourth instalment, The Cold Light of Dawn, was published in February 2018.

When Anna is not stuck in the 14th century, she's probably visiting in the 17th century, specifically with Alex(andra) and Matthew Graham, the protagonists of the acclaimed The Graham Saga. This is the story of two people who should never have met – not when she was born three centuries after him. The ninth book, There is Always a Tomorrow, was published in November 2017.

Roger Godberd of Swannington

by Chris Thorndycroft

In my previous post on a possible historical basis for the Robin Hood legend, I looked at Robert Hood of Wakefield; a man with the right name who lived in the right period within an arrow’s flight of Barnsdale (the main stomping ground of Robin Hood in the ballads). But there was one other figure of an earlier generation who, despite his name bearing no resemblance to Robin Hood, lived a life with several striking parallels to England’s famous outlaw.

Roger Godberd hailed from Swannington in Leicestershire and the records of his life come from a number of court rolls. Several people have tried to construct his biography from these tantalising scraps but the most readable is David Baldwin’s(1).

The first mention of Godberd is in 1250 where he makes a complaint that his mother and stepfather cut down sixty oaks on his land. He is noted as being underage at this time which would make his year of birth 1229 at the earliest. He appears to have later had a daughter called Diva who is mentioned in a court case in 1258 over disputed land.

Swannington was part of the manor of Whitwick until it became a manor in its own right in more recent times. There is evidence of a moated hall north of the village dating to the 12th century. Godberd appeared to be in charge of Swannington by 1259 as he is recorded handing it over to Jordan le Fleming for a period of ten years but then forcibly booting him off it a year later.

Godberd was a tenant of Robert de Ferrers, the 6th Earl of Derby. De Ferrers – a hot-headed and quarrelsome man – came of age in 1260 and immediately began a campaign to take back his lands which had been held in wardship by the Lord Edward (Longshanks, later to become Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’). One of these properties was Nottingham Castle of which Roger Godberd was a member of the garrison.

Roger seems to have run into some legal trouble during his time at Nottingham as a record included in The Sherwood Forest Book (a collection of legal documents from various sources) tells of an episode in 1264 where Roger and several companions are accused of poaching deer in Sherwood Forest(2). That this accusation arose in 1287 – twenty-three years after the fact – is perhaps indicative of the efficiency of the medieval judicial system.

The delay may have been partly caused by the outbreak of the Second Barons’ War; a civil war in which the barons, under Simon de Montfort, attempted to establish a parliament more sympathetic to their demands. Robert de Ferrers threw himself into the conflict but was more interested in pursuing his personal vendetta against the Lord Edward than supporting the baronial cause. He ultimately missed out on the Battle of Lewes which saw the barons’ victory over King Henry III.

With the king and the Lord Edward under house arrest, Simon de Montfort became ruler of England in all but name. But while squabbling broke out amongst his supporters, Edward escaped custody and rallied an army to his father’s cause. The resulting slaughter at the Battle of Evesham spelled the end for de Montfort’s movement (not to mention his life) and his followers found themselves disinherited.

The ruins of Kenilworth Castle; once one of England's strongest medieval
fortifications and the site of one of the longest sieges in English history

Pockets of resistance held out; rebels entrenched themselves on the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire and at Kenilworth Castle which endured one of the longest sieges in English history. Roger Godberd was apparently financially desperate and appears in the Close Rolls of 1266 for forcing the Abbot of Garendon to hand over the charters for the lands he had leased the abbey.

In October, 1266, Godberd was granted safe passage to attend the Dictum of Kenilworth; the king’s offer to the rebels to buy back their lands at rates according to their level of involvement in de Montfort’s rebellion. Eventually pardoned, Godberd appears to have moved north to begin a life of crime with his brother Geoffrey and others.

When he was finally brought to trial in 1276, the charges against him vary from burglary, homicide, arson and robbery in Leicester, Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire, the most heinous of which was the robbery of the monks of Stanley Abbey in 1270, one of whom was killed.

Reginald de Grey, Justice of Chester, was given money from Nottingham, Leicester and Derby to raise an army to hunt down the outlaws who were running rampant in those counties. De Gray had recently held the position of High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests (Nottingham didn’t get its own sheriff until 1449). Interestingly, de Grey was also one of the accused Sherwood poachers of 1264 alongside Roger and Geoffrey Godberd suggesting that they had previously been comrades in the Nottingham Castle garrison and now operated on opposite sides of the law.

All this about Nottingham and Sherwood may sound more like the Robin Hood of later tradition, not the outlaw of Barnsdale in the earliest ballads. But even in those stories, it is the Sheriff of Nottingham who plays the part of the chief villain despite the fact that he would have been out of his jurisdiction pursuing outlaws in Barnsdale. Not only does this suggest that there were once two separate traditions – a Nottinghamshire one and a Yorkshire one that got blended at some point – but one of the first stories of Robin Hood includes an episode that bears a striking resemblance to what Roger Godberd did next.

In the ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, Robin and his companions befriend a knight called Sir Richard who shelters them at his castle from an assault by the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Calendar of the Close Rolls of Henry III show that a knight called Richard Foliot was accused of sheltering Godberd and his companions at his castle of Fenwick. Richard was eventually forced to hand over his castle and son Edmund to the Sheriff of Yorkshire as surety until he stood trial for harbouring outlaws.

Sherwood Forest

There is also a record (unfortunately undated) in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I showing that Godberd and a number of his followers were captured at a grange owned by Rufford Abbey in Sherwood and imprisoned at Nottingham Castle. The man who captured them was Hugh de Babington, undersheriff at this time to Walter Giffard, High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire etc. and also Archbishop of York. Another record of Godberd’s capture has Reginald de Grey take him at Hereford before conducting him to Bridgenorth. This second arrest suggests that Godberd escaped custody (possibly from Nottingham Castle itself) only to be recaptured by de Grey.

While Godberd spent the next few years in various prisons, his followers remained active. There was an attempt to rescue him from Bridgenorth and Godberd’s brother Geoffrey attacked the servants of Lucy de Grey (Reginald’s step-mother) while they were en route to Leicester.

Stays at Hereford and Chester gaols are also recorded before Godberd was incarcerated at Newgate and brought to trial at the Tower of London in 1276. Inexplicably, King Edward I pardoned him and Roger Godberd wandered off the map of history.

So, we have a rebellious outlaw operating from Sherwood, robbing the clergy and defying the sheriffs and justices. He was sheltered by a knight called Richard and eventually pardoned by a king called Edward (just as Robin was the Gest ballad). Robert Hood of Wakefield may be an interesting candidate but there is no denying Roger Godberd’s possible influence on the legend. That the ballads alternately switch between Barnsdale in Yorkshire and Sherwood in Nottinghamshire suggest there may have been more than one source for the legend. Perhaps Godberd provided one part of the tale while another outlaw in Yorkshire provided the rest.

My recent novel Lords of the Greenwood focuses, in part, on the exploits of Roger Godberd and the Second Barons’ War. It also deals with Robert Hood of Wakefield who is outlawed a generation later and, inspired by tales of Godberd told to him by an old beggar who used to be one of Godberd’s band, sets up his own band of robbers who operate in Barnsdale.

Sources

For a fairly comprehensive list of all records pertaining to Roger Godberd, visit; http://www.robinhoodlegend.com/records-of-godberd/.

1.      David Baldwin. Robin Hood: The English Outlaw Unmasked. 2011

2.      Boulton, H. E. (ed). Sherwood Forest Book. Thoroton Society Record Series Volume XXIII. 1964

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Chris Thorndycroft is a British writer of historical fiction, horror and fantasy. His early short stories appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Dark Moon Digest and American Nightmare. His first novel under his own name was A Brother’s Oath; the first book in the Hengest and Horsa Trilogy. He also writes under the pseudonym P. J. Thorndyke.

His recent novel, Lords of the Greenwood, blends history with medieval ballads. This is the entwined saga of two men, separated by a generation and united by legend, who inspired the tales of England’s famous hooded outlaw. Lords of the Greenwood is available through Amazon.

For more information, please visit Chris Thorndycroft’s website. You can also find him on Twitter and Goodreads.

King John’s Castle – Medieval Stronghold

by Antoine Vanner

The term “medieval castle” brings immediately to mind images of high castellated walls, massive gatehouses and vast keeps, and many such fortresses did indeed exist. The vast majority of castles were however much smaller structures – “strongholds” – built for local defence, even if on occasion they did serve as royal residences. One such is King John’s Castle, near Odiham, Hampshire. Though it is little more than a ruined shell today it has a most spectacular history and provides insights into what many more like it looked like.

The remains of King John's Castle today

The castle consisted of a single massive octagonal keep of three stories and was surrounded by one or possibly more deep moats, which survive today only as dry, overgrown ditches. The walls, with cores of flint boulders held together by mortar, were externally clad with stone. This has however been stripped away over the centuries since here, as elsewhere in Britain, neighbouring communities exploited it as a quarry after it had been abandoned.

Now only the cores remain and indeed two sides of the octagon are gone completely. The site is preserved by Hampshire County Council as well as is possible given the castle’s ruined condition. A number of very informative notices are provided, each featuring delightful illustrations in the medieval style by the artist Andy Bardell. Some are shown here.

The structure was built in the 1207-1214 period on the orders of King John, a monarch who has had a deservedly bad reputation, as compared with his older brother Richard, who had an undeservedly good one. John’s entire reign consisted of conflicts with the Church, with the French and with his own barons. The castle at Odiham is associated with the single most important event of John’s reign, as it was from here in 1215 that he rode to Runnymede, under pressure from his rebellious barons, to sign the Magna Carta, and thereby to lay the foundation for the liberties of the English-speaking world in centuries to come.

King John rides out to Runneymede

A year later invading French troops besieged the castle for two weeks. The defenders were allowed to surrender with honour and were found, to the amazement of the French, to consist of fourteen men only. This is a commentary on just how invulnerable such structures were in the days before gunpowder and when hunger and thirst were the most effective weapons against determined defenders.

King John’s young son, Henry III, ordered repairs to the castle in 1225, the refurbished roof being of lead and weighing some 22 tons. It was supported by the outer walls and by a central column that no longer exists. On each of the two floors above ground level, beams extended from this central beam, like spokes of a wheel, to joist holes in the outer walls.

Eleven years later Henry III gave the castle to his younger sister, Eleanor, who was married to the powerful French nobleman, Simon de Montfort. He in due course became Earl of Leicester and was a key figure in the “Barons’ War” against his royal brother-in-law. While a residence in this period, the castle’s interior was likely to have been richly furnished. It can only however have been very cramped by modern standards and one assumes that most of the retainers and servants were lodged in smaller dwellings, of which no trace now remains, in the area between the castle walls and the moat.

Eleanor and Simon prepare for a banquet (note Eleanor's household roll)

This period ended when Simon de Montfort was killed in 1265 at the Battle of Evesham, in which he was fighting the future King Edward I, son of Henry III. Family ties notwithstanding, Eleanor was exiled to France, where she spent the rest of her days, taking with her the household rolls, which give an insight to life at the castle and which can be seen in Andy Bardell’s illustration. 

Edward succeeded his father in due course and spent Christmas 1302 there. His own son, Edward II, proved to be one of the most disastrous kings in English history and his reign was not only marred by civil war but by his ultimate overthrow by his wife, Isabella, abetted by her lover. Odiham Castle was once more besieged in 1322, but again survived.

Edward III, unlike his father, proved to be perhaps the most powerful English king of the medieval period and he not only initiated the Hundred Years War against France but scored notable victories over the Scots, Scotland at that time still being an independent kingdom, and almost invariable an ally of France. Edward granted Odiham Castle to his queen, Phillippa of Hainault, and it appears that she may have had a garden planted around it, an indication that its role was no longer primarily military.

Edward III and Phillippa prepare for bed

The castle was to play its last significant role in history in this period. In 1346 Edward’s army smashed an invading Scots force at Neville’s Cross (today a suburb of Durham) and in the process captured the Scottish king, David II. Held captive until an enormous ransom of 100,000 marks was paid, Davis was held for part of the time at the Tower of London, and for three years at Odiham. Here, in the agreeable rural surroundings of East Hampshire, he was provided with a well-furnished room and with good food, wine and other luxuries. The nature of his detention was unlikely to have been rigorous since honour would forbid escape prior to payment of ransom and one can well imagine David hunting in the surrounding area.

With David’s release Odiham Castle, now relegated to the status of a hunting lodge, started to fade from history. By 1600 it seems to have been in ruins and the process of quarrying it for stone seems to have started. Its day had however been a long one and despite its small size it was witness to some of the most dramatic events of England’s Middle Ages.

Odiham Castle today

A particularly attractive way to reach the castle today is by barge from the nearby modern village of Odiham, and the photograph  below shows a lucky group en route to King John's Castle in August 2013.

In preparing this article I am indebted to the splendid notices posted by Hampshire County Council at the site and which are so beautifully enhanced by Andy Bardell’s illustrations.
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An Editor's Choice, originally published on September 9, 2013

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Antoine Vanner had had an adventurous and rewarding life, living and working long-term in eight countries and doing short-term assignments in many more. He is fascinated by history, especially of the nineteenth century, and this provides the foundation for his Dawlish Chronicles novels, the first of which, Britannia's Wolf was published early in 2013. Volume 5, Britannia's Amazon, was published in November 2016. He maintains a very extensive website: www.dawlishchronicles.com.

Website

Amazon US

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The History of English Part II: From Conquest to Printing Press

by Annie Whitehead

The first part of my story of English concluded with the coming of the Normans, and a story from the 12th century sums up what happened after the Normans settled. A local priest witnessed a miracle, where after the laying on of hands, a mute man was cured and able to speak English and French. The priest was resentful. Brother William, he said, had laid hands on this man and instantly he could speak two languages, whereas he, the local priest, had to remain dumb in the presence of the bishop. This priest, it transpired, knew little Latin, and no French.

A page from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

In 1154, the English monks who had written the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (established by Alfred the great) put down their pens. French was the language to speak, and Latin was used for writing and remained the principal language of religion and learning. A visitor from another planet would assume that English disappeared, to be replaced permanently by French.

However, we know this is not so.

A document from c.1100 in which Henry I addresses “All his faithful people, both French and English.” Yet Orderic Vitalis (1074-c.1142), an historian born of a Norman knight and an English mother, complained when he was sent to a monastery in Normandy that he heard “A language [French] that I did not know.”

Imagine a minor Norman knight being given a small manor in the English countryside. Surrounded by English-speaking ‘natives’, he would have to pick up a fair amount of English if he wished to be understood.

Perhaps we can also thank ‘Bad’ King John for the survival of the English Language. His loss of the French territories forced the nobility to choose one or the other. “My brother Amaury” said Simon de Montford, “released to me our brother’s whole inheritance in England, provided that I could secure it; in return I released to him what I had in France.” In 1244 the king of France declared that “As it is impossible that any man living in my kingdom, and having possessions in England, can competently serve two masters, he must either inseparably attach himself to me or to the king of England.”

King John

In the 1230s, Henry III had become the first king of England since 1066 to give distinctively English names to his sons – Edward and Edmund. The eldest son, Edward I, was very conscious of his Englishness, and French gradually became an acquired language. Documents began to be written in English again and during the 100 Years War there was a massive impetus to speak English. Church sermons, prayers and carols were all expressed in English. During the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, Richard II spoke to the peasants in English.

But English was now what we term Middle English (ME) – a written record of what had been happening for a while in spoken English. An example of how the language was changing is the case of the letter y. In OE (Old English) it represented a short vowel, written by French scribes as u. The OE word mycel became ME muchel, which becomes modern much. When y stood for a long vowel it was written by the French scribes as ui. So the OE fyr becomes the ME fuir and the modern fire. This sound, though, was pronounced differently in different parts of the country, sometimes representing the i in kin, elsewhere (Kent and parts of East Anglia) it was more like the e in merry. In the west it was the oo in mood, but spelt with a u. So the OE for kin, cyn, could be kyn, ken, or kun.

The OE byrgen had ME variants birien, burien, berien and became our modern bury, while using the Kentish pronunciation berry, yet busy has the western spelling but is pronounced as the London/E Midlands bizzy.

The five main speech areas – Northern, West and East Midland, Southern and Kentish are similar to contemporary English speech areas.

The triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London shared the same kind of English, which may be said to have become the basis for Standard English of the modern age.

17th Century depiction of Chaucer

London English came to be exemplified by one man – Geoffrey Chaucer. Choosing to write in English, he brought about the rebirth of English as a National Language. One line from his Troilus and Criseyde shows the journey of the language up to that point:

Criseyde says to Troilus: "Welcome, my knight, my pees, my suffisance."

Welcome, my, and knight, are all English words, although the original OE cniht meant boy, before it became loaded with French military connotations. Peace (pees) is one of the earliest words to come with the conquest, replacing the OE grith. Suffisance, an overblown synonym for satisfaction, is from French, via Latin.

Chaucer’s time also saw another monumental change, with the emergence of surnames. People began to be associated with where they lived (Brooks, Rivers, Hill, and Dale) or their occupation (Butcher, Hunter, Glover, Sadler, Miller, Cooper)

Chaucer wrote in English, but the official language of government was still, for the time being, French. Henry V became the first English king since Harold to use English in official documents, and in the summer of 1415, when he crossed the Channel to fight the French, the first letter he dictated was, symbolically, written in English.

Chaucer Manuscript

English spelling is confusing, as we explored last time, but if you wonder why head doesn't sound like heat, or why steak doesn't rhyme with streak, and some doesn't rhyme with home, you can blame the Great Vowel Shift. Between roughly 1400 and 1700, the pronunciation of long vowels changed. Mice stopped being pronounced meese. House stopped being pronounced like hoose. (Although there is an area near Sheffield where it is pronounced arse*) Some words, particularly words with ea, kept their old pronunciation. Northern English dialects were less affected.

It might reasonably be argued that in some ways the regional dialects of the north remain closer to the original OE or even ON (Old Norse). Melvyn Bragg (A Cumbrian-born broadcaster and writer) overheard someone in a Scandinavian restaurant proclaim “As garn yam” (I’m going home.) To this day, inhabitants of Cumbria would understand this. Cumbrian vowel sounds probably did not shift to the same extent, so that we might still hear someone at Windermere telling us “I’m aboard a boat I bought about a week ago” with vowel sounds that make it seem more like, “As aboard abort about a boot a week sin.”

In other areas of the country, use of words typifies dialect. In the East of England, particularly Norfolk, the word that replaces it at seemingly every opportunity. “Thank you for bringing that book back, I’ll put that back on the shelf.” “That’s now raining.” “That’s a cold wind in the east; that don’t go round you, that go right through you.”

But I digress. English spelling was about to be not standardised, but dictated, by the printers. And here we come back to those spelling anomalies which I mentioned in more detail in Part I.

Ever wondered about the silent middle of words like night and right? In OE, the letter h was used for words like ham (home) and niht (night). This puzzled the French scribes, who couldn’t use a g, which was already in use, nor h, for the same reason. So they compromised with a gh to denote the sound. Although the pronunciation of this sound was dying out (it’s still in use in Scotland nicht/night) the spelling had become established and, crucially, William Caxton used it. His first printed book has a preface dedicated to Philip, Duke of Burgundy, whom he describes as a “Ryght noble, gloryous and myghty prince.”

Brut Chronicle printed by Caxton 1480

Gradually, spelling was falling prey to rules, although it had some way to go. And while French did not ‘take over’, its influence on spelling is clear. OE had a word sinder, meaning the residue left by metal in a furnace, the French had cendre, meaning ashes, and the two fused to become the modern word, cinder.

By the time printing arrived, in the 1470s, the above-mentioned Great Vowel Shift was well underway. Caxton himself lamented the variety of spelling and pronunciation: “And certainly our language varyeth far from that which was used and spoken when I was born.” But with the arrival of printing came a more systemised way of using punctuation marks, but spelling was still quite varied. What printing did do, however, was sound the death knell for the OE letters ‘thorn’ (þ) and ‘eth’ (ð) and ‘yogh’ (Ȝ). Spelling might not yet be standardised, but the alphabet was.


*The Arse that Jack Built - BBC Radio 4

Part I: The Early History of English

Further Reading:
A Little Book of Language – David Crystal
Spell It Out – David Crystal
The Story of English – McCrum, Cran & MacNeil
Whatt Fettle Mun: A Celebration of Cumbrian Dialect – T Barker
Broad Norfolk - J Mardle
A Dictionary of Cumberland Dialect – Richard LM Byers
Concise Oxford Dictionary
Wordcraft – S Pollington

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Annie Whitehead is an historian and novelist who writes about the Anglo-Saxon era. The author of two award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia, she was also a contributor to 1066 Turned Upside Down, a re-imagining of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and an editor of the EHFA blog. Currently she is working on a contribution to a non-fiction book to be published by Pen & Sword Books in the summer of 2017.
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Earl Gilbert de Clare’s Occupation of London in 1267

by Darius Stransky

Gilbert de Clare (1243 to 1295), also known as ‘Gilbert the Red’ because of his hair colour and fiery disposition, was the seventh earl of Gloucester and sixth earl of Hertford. He was born at Christchurch, Dorset, on 2nd September 1243, the eldest son of Richard de Clare, earl of Hertford and earl of Gloucester (1222–1262).

Gilbert de Clare

The Clare’s owed their leading position in the English nobility to royal favour, inheritance, profitable marriages and a certain belief in the adage that ‘Might is Right’.

In 1252 and ambitious to increase his family's standing and encouraged by King Henry III, who wished to strengthen relations between the crown and the nobility, Gilbert’s father arranged the marriage of Gilbert to the king's niece Alice for a dowry of 5000 marks (that’s around £800,000 in today’s money). In the spring of the following year Earl Richard and William de Valence, the king's half-brother, accompanied Gilbert, then aged nine, to Poitou to solemnize the marriage.

King Henry III

As you can see, Gilbert was born with more than a silver spoon in his mouth; he had a complete silver service clamped between his young jaws!

In 1262 aged twenty, Gilbert inherited his father's estates and took on the titles, including Lord of Glamorgan.

The Second Baron’s War saw Gilbert ally himself with Simon de Montfort and in April 1264, Gilbert emulated his leader by massacring the Jews at Canterbury, (just as Simon de Montfort had done in Leicester).

Not being best pleased with the young impetuous earl, King Henry took Gilbert’s castles of Kingston and Tonbridge but Henry allowed de Clare's wife Alice de Lusignan, who was in the latter, to go free. On the 12th of May 1264, de Clare and de Montfort were declared traitors.

Two days later, on 14th May, Simon de Montfort knighted Gilbert and on that fateful day at Lewes the battle between Barons and Royalists commenced.

In theory King Henry and his illustrious son Lord Edward (the future Edward the First) should have won the battle of Lewes. Gilbert commanded the central division of the Baronial army, Lord Edward the right wing of the Royalists. When Edward left the field in pursuit of Montfort's routed left wing, comprising of Londoners, the King and Earl of Cornwall were thrown back to the town. Henry took refuge in the Priory of St Pancras, and Gilbert accepted the surrender of the Earl of Cornwall, who had hidden in a windmill. Montfort and Earl Gilbert were now supreme with both the King and his son under arrest. Simon de Montfort was now the de facto King of England.

King Edward I

To put it into context, Gilbert had at first supported the King then he changed sides. Not a man to be trusted eh?

In November the same year (1264) Gilbert removed his metaphorical Baronial hat and put on the Royalist one when he changed sides yet again to support Henry and Lord Edward.

So it was that on August 4th 1265 at the battle of Evesham, Gilbert led the left wing of Lord Edward’s army and de Montfort was slain. Gilbert certainly knew how to pick a winner didn’t he?

The battle of Evesham was also known as ‘the murder of Evesham’ as Edward went against the rules of chivalry and slaughtered even those attempting to surrender – Gilbert did his fair share of blood-letting. This second baron’s war didn’t end at Evesham as rebels held out all over the land.

In September 1265 at the Parliament of Winchester the rebels were disinherited and their lands given to royal supporters.

In April 1267 a certain Sir John de Deyville [1] and his men would not accept the dictum of Kenilworth [2] proclaimed on 31st October 1266 (this stated that the rebels had to pay their dues for their part in the wars). But Sir John needed a backer and guess who rode to his rescue? Correct: Gilbert de Clare!

Our recalcitrant Earl changed side again and took his troops to London in defiance of King Henry and Lord Edward. Gilbert had the idea that whoever controlled London (and especially the Tower) controlled the realm.

Model of 13th Century Tower of London

King Henry was at Cambridge and Edward at Windsor when news reached them that Gilbert had entered London. The Londoners had no love for Henry and thought themselves a cut above the rest of England’s populace. Gilbert was welcomed with open arms and once again rebellion reared its ugly head.

To be fair to Gilbert, his stated aim was to lighten the burdens imposed on the rebel knights and barons. He sought to use his occupation of London as a bargaining tool. Some say he had delusions of grandeur and thought to start another full-blown rebellion but, personally, I think his intentions were true.

A certain Cardinal Ottobuono (Papal Legate) [3] occupied The Tower of London at the time and Gilbert set about laying siege so as to gain the Tower and cement his hold on London. Gilbert also tore down houses and set up defences on the South bank of the Thames at Southwark for he assumed that Edward would attack from this direction. Eventually Cardinal Ottobuono relinquished the Tower and set up residence at Stratford some miles East of the city.

With the Tower in his control Gilbert naturally assumed his demands for reform were a certainty but – there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there – he hadn’t taken the behaviour of Sir John Deyville in to consideration.

If we accept that Gilbert’s occupation of London was undertaken with the best of intentions; to seek redress for the Disinherited knights and Barons, to right what he considered a wrong in their treatment then Sir John Deyville’s intentions were completely the opposite.

Sir John and his men basically ran amok through London. He even occupied Henry’s favourite Palace of Westminster and, not content with plundering anything of value that could be moved he even took away doors and windows! When King Henry heard about this he vowed dire revenge on the avaricious knight.

Even the Londoners complained about Sir John and his followers who took drink, food, lodgings and even the local women of easy virtue without paying for them; the Londoners were becoming disaffected; the tide was turning.

Then came news that the Royal army was on its way. Gilbert expected a direct attack but King Henry and Lord Edward took their forces to the Abbey of St Mary's, Stratford Langthorne where they met up with Cardinal Ottobuono.

With an army almost on their doorstep the Londoners realised the game was up and supporters drifted away from Gilbert. More men flocked to the Royal banner at Stratford where, unbeknown to Gilbert, Lord Edward had taken charge and Edward wanted a fight.

It was then that Henry’s brother, Richard of Cornwall came up with a plan he hoped would end this rebellion without bloodshed when he spoke words similar to this to King Henry;

“Let it be known that those disinherited subjects can once again return to their lands. That they must pay any monies and fines to you until full reparation has been achieved. Thus, at a stroke of the pen, the reason for this dispute will evaporate like the morning mist.”

Once this communication was handed to Gilbert and the turncoat earl had thought long and hard on his rapidly deteriorating situation he accepted the offer from the King which also included a Royal Pardon for himself (personally I would have hanged him!)

On Saturday June 18th 1267 on the Feast day of St Mark (Marci) and St Marcellian a victorious Henry and Lord Edward rode into London to the sight of a cheering populace (they had to cheer for Henry had even offered them a pardon!)

As Gilbert left London there was a final ignominy for him to endure. He had to relinquish Tonbridge Castle and/or his daughter and pay a fine of ten thousand marks.

And Sir John Deyville? He was eventually pardoned and went on to redeem himself.

Did Gilbert de Clare ever change sides again I hear you ask? Well not specifically. He did promise to accompany Lord Edward on Crusade but never actually fulfilled his pledge. He was constantly falling out with Edward and sailing close to the wind in his dealings with royalty (it was rumoured Edward had a dalliance with his first wife Alice but that’s another story).

Gilbert was the first to accept Edward as King when Henry died in 1272 whilst Edward was on crusade. So that was a good move.

Eventually Gilbert married Edward’s daughter Joan of Acre [4] but even then Edward had the last laugh for it was written that when Gilbert died all his lands and property would revert to Joan and thus back to the Crown.

Gilbert Died: 7th December 1295 at Monmouth Castle, Monmouth.

In conclusion: It is my opinion that Gilbert’s occupation of London in 1267 did indeed achieve his aims and that further opposition to the Crown was defused thanks to the changes he obtained.


References: (1) Sir John Deyville (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) http://bit.ly/2iADkIF 
(2) Dictum of Kenilworth http://bit.ly/2jxOT2C
(3) Cardinal Ottobuono (ODNB) http://bit.ly/2jYVlwB
 (4) Joan of Acre http://bit.ly/2jya2tw

[All above images are in the public domain]

~~~~~~~~~~

Darius Stransky wrote weekly columns and articles for prestigious UK media groups for many years. He then immersed himself in thirteenth-century English studies and thus was born ‘The King’s Jew’ series.
Stransky’s ‘The King’s Jew Quartet’ is an adventure, a love story and a tale of intrigue and passion set against the backdrop of Edward the First and spans sixty-seven years of Cristian’s and Edward’s life together. Importantly, the life of the medieval Jew and the common man is not overlooked in this sweeping saga.
Information on Books One and Two and worldwide purchase options are available here at his book page 
Paperback available HERE 
Connect with Darius at his website

Simon de Montfort and the Fight for Parliament, 1263 to 1265

by Katherine Ashe

It was a document known as The Provisions of Oxford, not the Magna Carta, that brought modern elective government into existence. It was the Provisions that created Parliament, and gave Parliament power over the Crown.

The Provisions were composed by the barons and clergymen of England, meeting in committees at Oxford in 1258. Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, was a leading member of the committees. But as soon as this work of proposed monumental reform was completed in draft, the lords abandoned their weeks of effort and rode off into the night. Led by the instigator of the Oxford meeting, the Earl of Gloucester Richard de Clare, they went in pursuit of King Henry III’s dangerous half-brothers of Lusignan, fearing the brothers would flee abroad and raise an army against them.

Of all the lords, it was only Montfort who remained behind. As England’s chief military strategist he probably understood that whether the Lusignan escaped or not, invasion from abroad was likely. The principals expressed in the Provisions were an offense to every king’s free exercise of power, and challenged the Pope who had a claim on England’s Crown as security for a debt King Henry owed the Vatican, but which the lords refused to pay.

At Oxford, Montfort and the clergymen saw to it that the Provisions were properly copied from erasable wax tablets and published to the new sheriffs who helpfully had been appointed by the King from the Oxford meeting’s lists.

The pursuing lords camped in the yard of Winchester Castle, holding the Lusignan brothers besieged during the time this essential work was being carried out at Oxford. Then suddenly the besiegers succumbed to poison. Virtually every major lord of England fell desperately ill and many died. Those who survived required years to recover. It was left to Simon de Montfort and the clerics at Oxford to actually put the Provisions into effect, creating the first Parliament.

Over his own seal, and with the assumed authority of the new Council called for by the Provisions (which did not yet actually exist), Montfort single-handedly called for the election of four knights from each shire to represent the people of England. It was he who summoned the first Parliament to convene, who replaced the royal bailiffs and castellans and set England on a footing to repel the expected invasion from abroad.

The first Parliament commenced on October 18th, 1258 in Westminster Hall. King Henry and his heir Prince Edward were virtual prisoners of the government Montfort had brought into being, and they were forced to swear allegiance to the new order. But while Prince Edward for a time entertained an interest in hearing regularly from the people’s elected representatives, Henry would use covert means to undermine and suppress this abominable expression of democracy.

With the new institution of Parliament an achieved success, the next issue on the Crown’s agenda was the completion of a treaty with France. As ambassador to France for King Henry, the Earl Montfort had negotiated the treaty and he attended the royal party to Paris.

Henry now claimed his goal in life was to lead a crusade to Palestine – a project he knew was close to King Louis’ heart. This is the king we know as Saint Louis. As an article of the treaty, Louis was granting Henry funds for an army for his crusade.
Simon learned the army being raised was not to embark for the East, but for England. As Henry lingered in France, Parliament was due to reconvene. The army would give Henry the means to squash it. As the King’s foremost general, Simon was well known in the office of the Duke of Brabant where mercenary armies were hired and assembled. It was no difficulty for him to order the soldiers so far assembled to meet him – and to lead them himself to England for Parliament’s defense. This was, beyond any doubt, a clear act of treason against his king.

Yet was it? Henry had sworn loyalty to his subjects’ new government. Simon saw his move as forcing the King to stand by his oath. But when, many weeks later, King Henry finally arrived in England protesting innocence and love of the Parliament, Simon was arrested and taken to the Tower of London, charged with high treason. From there his friend King Louis, knowing Henry had intended to misuse the army granted for crusade, rescued Simon and had the trial transferred to Paris.

It was 1263 before the trial came to a close. King Henry withdrew his charges, realizing that Louis was fully aware of his treachery and breach of the treaty. Henry was forced to let Montfort go, rather than make his treaty null and void.

During his stay in Paris pending trial, Simon was frequently approached by clerics and the young English lords whose fathers had succumbed to the Lusignan’s poison at Winchester. Between 1259 and 1263 King Henry undermined and finally succeeded in suppressing the Parliament. And he returned to his abusive former ways. Englishmen of every rank prayed for Montfort to come and lead them to restore the government of the Provisions.

There was more to these prayers than the hope of resuscitating Parliament. The theologian Joachim de Flor, in the late 12th century, posited three Ages of Man: the Era of the Father, in which tribal society prevailed; the Era of the Son which saw the rise of kingship, nations and the Church; and the Era of the Holy Ghost in which nations, kingship and the Church would dissolve into a single World Order, governed by the vote of the common man inspired to wisdom by the Holy Spirit. Joachim specified the year 1260 as the commencement of this New Age.

The creation of Parliament was seen as the first act of this new era. And Simon de Montfort was its champion. He was hailed in England as the Angel of the Apocalypse, or perhaps even the Risen Christ.

All this Simon most probably considered heretical. He certainly was not flattered by it. His intention, once free of the trial, was to return to Palestine and assist in its Christian kingdom’s revival after the invasions by the Khoresines and the political disorders that followed the Khoresines’ withdrawal.

But almost immediately after King Henry vacated his charges, a group of young English lords pled with Simon on behalf of his cousin Peter de Montfort, who was leading a force against King Henry’s royalists in England’s western shires. A much larger force was massing at Oxford, the lordlings said. Simon agreed to go to observe what was happening. At the meeting he was so moved by the numbers of determined young warrior lords that he agreed to be their leader.

In a few months, in the spring and summer of 1263, Simon conquered England, held the King, the Queen and Prince Edward his prisoners and reinstated Parliament.

Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, was a brilliant general and a man who genuinely thought a means was necessary to control kings who were incompetent. He did not believe in replacing legitimate kings, but in harnessing them to serve the will of the people. So he did not kill King Henry and accept the Crown of England for himself, not even when it was twice offered to him by his Parliaments. He was not really an advocate of democracy, but saw himself as a royalist protecting the royal line from its own self-inflicted disasters.

Nor was he a politician deft at manipulating the lesser powers that surrounded him. Jealousies arose, and complaints when he used the abundant funds of royal rents to fortify the castle that had been his home but which he had returned to the Crown at Oxford in 1258. It was to be a stronghold, should one be needed against a royalist resurgence. Surrounding walls and towers were built after the manner of crusader castles in Palestine: castles that could be held by just a few defenders indefinitely against siege. Kenilworth would withstand attack for eighteen months in 1265-66, surrendering only when its defenders were tricked into a false amnesty.

Simon rightly understood the risks inherent in England’s new form of government. It was an offense to every untrammeled Crown in Europe, and to the papal advocacy of Thomas Aquinas’s theology. Joachim’s books describing a coming democratic age had been burned and his teachings banned by a series of Popes. The theology of Aquinas was now embraced -- and that described the Lord’s Creation as an immutable hierarchy: the Pope, then kings held precedence – with complete freedom of action – over all the rest of Creation.

Montfort used the funds that flowed into his government for England’s sustained military alert, instead of giving the customary monetary gifts to his followers. Soon dissatisfaction gathered into conspiracy.

With aid from among Montfort’s own staff, King Henry and Prince Edward escaped and formed a royalist army to reconquer England. The Queen, who had been sent for her own safety to France, raised a force abroad: 20,000 mercenaries and a fleet to transport them across the Channel from Flanders. Simon summoned the people of England to defend their coasts, and the royalist fleet turned back, unable to land. King Henry marched on London, Simon’s headquarters. But the Londoners brought Simon’s army within their walls and defied their King.

King Louis had offered to arbitrate a peace; now Henry and Montfort accepted his offer. But on the way to the arbitration, in January of 1264, Simon’s horse fell in a frozen creek. Simon’s hip and leg were crushed and he could not attend the meeting. Without him, Cardinal Guy Folques, King Louis’ confessor and an ardent advocate of Aquinas’s hierarchies, dominated the meeting. The Provisions and its Parliament were declared heretical. The most Louis could achieve for his friend was amnesty. But the Marchers lords, on the borders of Wales and always Montfort’s enemies, observed no amnesty. They attacked and seized Montfort holdings. The Earl sent his sons Henry and Guy to counter them. War had resumed.

The Earl’s son Simon, following the King’s army’s movements, was defeated at Northampton and taken prisoner. The Earl, traveling in a specially constructed armored vehicle since his leg was not yet healed, went to London to see what forces could be raised there to defend the Parliament. The Londoners proved to be violent against civilians but highly unreliable as an army. When Simon left for Northampton to rescue his son, they sacked and burnt the Jewry to the ground.

Rather than remain trapped in London by the necessity of keeping the townsmen from committing further destruction, Montfort took them with him as he marched against the city of Rochester which guarded the road from the southern ports to the capital. King Henry again was intending to bring his troops from abroad.

In a brilliant use of the London boatmen’s knowledge of currents, Montfort launched a flotilla of the Londoners against Rochester’s water gate, on the River Medway. Led by a blazing fire ship that came to lodge firmly in the gate’s flammable timbers, the Londoners quickly took the gate. Slaughtering the gate’s guards who leapt from their flaming tower, they poured into the city, killing, raping, stealing everything including the cathedral’s candlesticks, and making the cathedral’s bell ringer an archery target.

Hours after the Londoners’ landing, when Simon took the landward gates and entered the city, he was appalled by the horrors he found. He commanded his knights to seize anyone caught raping, stealing or killing civilians.

The next day, in the city’s square at the foot of the castle, which still held out for King Henry, he ordered the Londoner prisoners beheaded as, unarmed, he knelt, penitent and well within bowshot of the castle’s roof. The defenders watched with fascination, and they did not draw an arrow at the Earl.

For days Simon remained in his tent outside Rochester. He sent repeated pleas to King Henry begging peace and offering substantial reparations. The very foundation of his belief in his cause seems to have been shattered. What would a government be, led by the vote of such monsters as the London commoners showed themselves? But King Henry, sensing weakness, refused peace and continued his tour of the southern ports, seeking a means of bringing in his army from Flanders.

All recourse gone, with a few young lords, Welsh and woodland archers and the remaining 3,000 Londoners and other common volunteers, Simon followed King Henry’s army. His archers, free roving and not particularly under his command, harassed the royal progress on the roads between each port.

Henry was finding that Montfort’s supporters in the ports had taken all vessels out to sea. He moved on, hoping to find some loyal captain who would carry word to Flanders that would bring his mercenary troops.

The march between Romney and Hove passed inland, particularly exposed to the archers who were picking off the King’s men and plundering his supply wagons. Roger Leybourne suggested that Henry halve the risky journey with a stop at the little castle of Lewes where the monastery at Lewes was large enough to entertain the lords with meals and lodging for the night.

Henry accepted. His knights made camp in front of Saint Pancras monastery, filling the deep and narrow valley. Their horses were stationed ahead for the morning’s departure, thus obstructing any quick movement forward, while the supply wagons were drawn up in a dense camp at the rear as they arrived. King Henry effectively was being trapped by his own massive entourage.

While the King and his friends drank Saint Pancras’s wines and feasted, Simon led his small force to the nearby village of Fletching. He sent the Bishops of London and Worchester to make one last plea with King Henry for peace, but they were refused and mocked.

After knighting twenty of his youthful followers, the Earl had his entire little army confessed and given the Last Rights for, undoubtedly, facing the King’s enormous, highly experienced forces, they all were going to die.

Then, while still in darkness, Simon ranged his young and novice knights on the edge of the high downs where the land sloped steeply down to the valley of Lewes. At dawn, astride an inconspicuous horse – and not in his well-known armored cart – he gave the order to attack. His young knights in three groups rode down upon the sleeping camp, while the Londoners walked towards the castle tower where Prince Edward and a force of mercenaries were lodged.

Edward, seeing the Londoners, whom he hated for their insults to his mother, took off with his men after the commoners. The Londoners fled back up the slope and scattered across the downs. Pursuing them, Edward absented himself from the main battle for the whole day. His Lusignan uncles spent their time on the high downs, attacking the fully enclosed, armored cart which actually held not the Earl, but two of their own spies. Meanwhile, in the valley, Simon’s young and new-made knights and archers destroyed King Henry’s army as they wallowed, entangled in their own tents.

Montfort won a total victory. It was thought a miracle. Saints were seen fighting in support of the youths who vanquished England’s barony.

Simon reinstated the Parliament but held the principal lords, the King and Prince Edward his prisoners. For England’s security he refused to let them be ransomed.

At one meeting of Parliament, then another, the youths who actually had captured the baronial prisoners lodged complaint – the lords’ ransoms were rightfully theirs, earned legitimately in battle. Increasingly, as the government of Parliament appeared to be succeeding, the Earl’s own followers became angry about the withheld funds. The very success of the movement made the argument that the monies were being used for the land’s security seem less and less viable -- especially as a substantial amount of the funds was being used to fortify Simon’s former home, Kenilworth, where his family again was living.

For the first Parliament of the year 1265, not only four knights elected by the common men of each shire, but also representatives of the cities, towns and merchant guilds were summoned to attend. The Ordinances, a program that would extend to the common man the rights won by the Provisions for the lords, was to be presented. Radical in the extreme, the Ordinances were at the very core of Parliament’s democratic movement.

But the lords thoroughly objected to extending rights to commoners. Only five, including Montfort and Richard de Clare’s heir Gilbert, attended the Parliament. The meeting, heavily weighted with representatives of the commonality, was expected to make the principal of equal rights for commoners the law of the land.

It is a tragedy in history that this Parliament miscarried badly. Gilbert de Clare had taken major lords his prisoners at Lewes. He not only demanded that the lords’ ransoms and collected rents be paid to him, but he accused Simon and his sons of appropriating the money for themselves. Henry de Montfort, Simon’s eldest son, and usually a pacifist, launched himself at Gilbert, beating him to the floor. The Parliament broke into mayhem and had to be adjourned.

Gilbert, staggering away, challenged the Montfort brothers to a tourney a outrance at the upcoming fair at Dunstable. A tourney a outrance was armed combat to the death with no limit as to time or location – it was no sport, but cross-country battle.
At Dunstable Gilbert gathered a substantial army of royalists, including England’s foremost barons and their knights. The Montfort brothers brought their own army of defenders of the family name. The Earl, leading the force of mercenaries that had been King Henry’s and now was his, disbursed the two armies, but Gilbert retreated to his home shires with an intact and numerous force.

Disorder in the shires, the revolt of the common people against the royalists’ abuses, had continued for three years. Parliament, under Montfort’s leadership, had instituted the Guardians of the Peace, a force able to impose martial law all across the shires. By 1265 the Guardians had achieved much of their purpose. Disputes that had been solved out-of-hand by murder and mayhem were being referred to the courts.

But the courts were overloaded to the point of crippling. The King’s Council, chosen by the Parliament, decided that the cure was for King Henry himself to go on a tour of the country, complete with Court, legal staff, Chancery, Treasury, Royal Household and all the clerks, courtiers and servants that implied, to restore the proper functioning of justice in each shire.
Simon opposed the plan. With Clare in possession of an army in the west, and armed forces abroad still ready to invade whenever possible, this tour was dangerous in the extreme. The bishops on the Council thought otherwise. In their view, nothing would prove the rightness of the Parliament than demonstrating that it was a viable form of government, able to bring peace and good order to the land. God had provided the victory at Lewes, God would defend the Parliament and the royal tour from mishap.

Reason would have it that at this point Simon de Montfort should have left England to its own unfounded optimism and gone to Palestine. But he was under excommunication by the Pope (none other than Louis’ old confessor Guy Folques who had opposed the arbitration of 1264.) His safety, his life and the future of his sons depended upon the success of Parliament.

He was allowed by the Council only a small force of fewer than two-hundred of his friends and Leicester knights for the King’s immediate security. Knowing the army Clare was massing, and seeing this appalling situation, the Welsh Prince Llewellyn leant him a hundred archers.

But now the Lusignan brothers were bringing in the mercenary army from abroad to join Gilbert de Clare. Clare lured the royal entourage to Hereford for talks of reconciliation. Hereford was in the west, across the Severn River, far from the principal shires of England and the concentration of Montfort’s supporters. Then Clare broke off talks and held Hereford at siege. And Prince Edward escaped to lead Clare’s combined forces.

The Earl wrote to his son Simon to raise an army of the Provisions’ partisans and come to Hereford at once to lift the siege. But young Simon failed to perceive the emergency. He dawdled at Winchester, holding court instead of marching to Bristol as his father ordered, and commandeering the merchant fleet there to cross the flooded Severn River. Clare had destroyed all the Severn boats, bridges and fording places, obstructing Montfort’s ready access to his supporters.

Waiting in vain for his son to arrive with relieving forces, eventually Simon managed to escape from Hereford with a much reduced assembly: the King, his Treasury, the few knights and the hundred archers. Along obscure mountain paths used only by shepherds, Simon led his little royal march to Bristol, where he himself had arranged for the fleet to cross and meet him. But from the heights overlooking the Severn he saw his ships met by Gilbert’s vessels, burnt and sunk. He retreated quickly to Hereford again.

Young Simon was sent urgent messages, ordering him to build boats to bring his army across the river. Simon Fils gradually moved to Kenilworth to have the master builder there build boats and transports.

July past at Hereford but Simon received no word from his son. On August 2nd, with food scarce, he managed to break out again from Hereford by night with only his friends, his Leicester knights, his Welsh archers and the King. He would travel at quickest speed to reach the safety of Kenilworth. Flooding on the Severn had receded and he was able to ford the river at Kempsey, near Worcester. At Kempsey his company spent the daylight hours of August 3rd in hiding. Worcester was Edward’s headquarters.

On August 2nd, young Simon, at Kenilworth, at last had completed outfitting his army, including boats, and transports for the boats that he did not know were unneeded. To celebrate his achievement, he gave a party for all his young captains. He held the celebration in the bathing house in Kenilworth’s village; such bathing houses often doubled as brothels. The party was drunken and quite naked when Prince Edward arrived with his soldiers. The Prince was very fond of his Montfort cousins. He did not put them to the sword but laughingly stole their clothes, their armaments, their flags, their horses and all their wagons of supply.

While young Simon spent August 3rd attempting to re-equip his army, that night his father began the last part of his journey to safety at Kenilworth. Marching at speed, the distance should have been achieved before dawn. But, lost and wandering on shepherd paths in the darkness, it was full morning when Simon and his following reached Evesham, still twenty miles from Kenilworth. Twenty very exposed miles, with Edward’s army somewhere nearby.

King Henry, decrepit for his years, complained incessantly. He shouted that this traveling was killing him. He had to rest. With deep misgivings, Simon relented. There was a monastery in Evesham and the monks he knew were strong supporters of his cause. He agreed to pause for breakfast at Evesham Abbey.

The decision was, perhaps, no more fatal than if he had proceeded. Edward led a true army, many times the size of the small guard Simon commanded. But Evesham, held in a deep bend of the River Avon, was a perilous place to pause.

The lookout on the abbey’s tower hurried to the dining hall to report advancing forces bearing young Simon’s flags. Celebration rang out in the hall. The relief forces were come at last.

Simon went to the tower’s roof. He was nearsighted but his squire Peter reported to him all that could be seen. The advancing army split in three, one moving towards the bridge to the south, over which the Earl had just come. One moving into place to the east of the village, and one moving northward towards Green Hill, bordering Evesham to the north. Before the northward moving troops were lost from sight behind the hill, the flags of young Simon’s army were lowered and Edward’s raised in their place.
A scout the Earl had sent out rode in with confirmation. It was indeed Edward’s, Gilbert’s and the Lusignan brothers’ armies that was surrounding Evesham. It appeared that young Simon’s army had been met and vanquished.

Simon commanded his followers to leave him and save themselves: to escape by the bridge before Clare’s forces succeeded in closing it off. Although they knew they were facing almost certain death, no one left. Bending to their loyalty, Simon had the Last Rights given to them all. King Henry was outfitted from helm to foot in borrowed armor and Simon led his followers up Green Hill to meet Edward.

At the ridge of the hill, with the Lusignan brothers and Marcher lords beside him, Edward had his troops form an unbroken line. The Prince called for Simon to surrender. Simon continued moving forward. The Marcher lords, led by Roger Mortimer, broke ranks, galloping down upon the little force opposing them with the King in their midst. King Henry was injured in the thigh but rescued from the battlefield. The Welsh archers released flights of arrows, then fled towards the river, where they were slaughtered. Fragments of their bones were turned up in the fields for centuries.

The Earl Simon de Montfort, his sons Henry and Guy and their few knights fought for three hours. Henry’s horse was killed. Edward, his friend since childhood, tried to send him another, but failed. Repeatedly the Prince cried out, calling halt to the slaughter. Ignored, he left the battlefield.

With his son Henry killed at his back, Simon fought alone, surrounded until, exhausted, he received deadly thrusts. Mortimer ordered the body stripped and had his henchman Maltraverse cut the limbs, head and genitals from Simon. And Mortimer sent Simon’s head to Maude, his bloody-minded wife.

When the battle was ended, the monks of Evesham came to the field with their carts for the wounded and dead. They found Simon’s truncated torso. As they lifted up the gory remains, from underneath there flowed a new spring. A spring with magical powers to heal the sick and blind.

Pilgrims soon came in great numbers to the miraculous healing spring. Simon de Montfort was recognized by the common man as a saint, if not an angel or the Twice Sacrificed Savior.

King Henry panicked rightly. He proclaimed it a treasonous crime to speak of Simon de Montfort in any but disparaging terms, or to take water from his spring.

This year the wrongs done Simon’s memory are being righted. All England is celebrating the 750th Anniversary of Simon de Montfort and his Parliament. At Evesham, among multiple celebrations, the battle is being recreated on August 8 and 9. I’ll be the speaker at the dinner on August 10.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Katherine Ashe is the author of the Montfort four volume novelized biography:
Amazon
Evesham Events calendar

Bibliography

Primary sources:
Montfort Archive, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. There is preserved, in this boxed archive of original documents, the trial notes and a brief autobiography by Simon written in 1260 in preparation for his trial before King Louis for treason against King Henry. (In the event, the trial was actually heard by Queen Margaret of France.)

Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, H.R., 1864-69:
Vol. I, Annals of Burton
Vol. II, Annals of Winchester and Waverly
Vol. III, Annals of Dunstable
Vol. IV, Annals of Osney; Chronicle of Thomas Wykes; Annals of Worcester

Calendar of Charter Rolls, Vol. I, 1226-1307, Public Record Office. Kraus Reprint, Neldeln/Liechtenstein, 1972. (Note: Kraus reprints are not complete.)

Calendar of the Liberate Rolls, Volumes I and II, Public Record Office, 1916.

Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1232-1272, Henry III. Public Record Office. Kraus Reprint, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1971. (Note: Kraus reprints are not complete.)

Chronica Johannis Oxenedes, John of Oxford, ed. H. Ellis, Rolls Series, 1859.

Documents of the Baronial Movement of reform and Rebellion, 1258 – 1267, ed. R. F. Treharne and I. J. Sanders, Oxford, 1973.

Excerpta e Rotulis Finium in Turri Londdinensi Asservatis Henry III, 1216-72, ed. by C. Roberts, Public Record Office. 1835-36.

Exchequer: The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer, Madox, Greenwood, 1769-1969, Volumes I and II.

Gervais of Canterbury, Historical Works of Gervais of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, Vols. I and II, Rolls Series, 1880.

Guisborough, The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, ed. H. Rothwell, Camden Society, third series, LXXXIX, 1957.

John of Oxford: Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, ed., H. Ellis, Rolls Series, 1859.

Laffan, R.G.D. Select Documents of European History, 800-1492, Volume I, Henry Holt and Company, New York.

Matthew Paris’s English History, from the year 1235 to 1273, volumes I to V, translated by the Rev. J. A. Giles, Henry Bohn, London, 1852. Note: Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints are incomplete. www.kessinger.net.

Matthaei Paris, Monachi Albanensis, Historia Major, Juxta Exemplar Londinense 1640, verbatim recusa, ed. Willielmo Wats, STD. Imprensis A. Mearne, T. Dring, B. Tooke, T. Sawbridge & G. Wells, MDCLXXXIV (1684)

Rishanger, William, The Chronicle of William de Rishanger, of the Barons’ War: The Miracles of Simon de Montfort. ed. J.O. Halliwell, Camden Society, 1840. Also known as the Chronicon de Bellis

Royal Letters, Henry III, ed. W.W. Shirley, Rolls Series, 1862.