Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester

Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester (born c. 1208, Montfort, Ile-de-France, France—died Aug. 4, 1265, Evesham, Worcestershire, Eng.) was the leader of the baronial revolt against King Henry III and ruler of England for less than a year.

Simon de Montfort, wholly French by birth and education, was the son of Simon de Montfort l’Amaury, leader of the Crusade against the heretical Albigenses. On coming of age, he renounced to his eldest brother, Amaury, his claims on the family lands in return for the sole right to revive the Montfort claim to the English earldom of Leicester. This claim derived from his father’s mother, Amicia, sister of Robert IV (died 1204), the last Beaumont earl of Leicester, whose lands had been divided between Amicia and her younger sister Margaret, countess of Winchester. King John had recognized Simon’s father as earl (c. 1205) but had deprived him as a French subject (1207), and the Montfort claim had then lapsed.

Simon came to England in 1229 and, helped by his cousin Ranulf, earl of Chester, the tenant of the confiscated estates, obtained the honour of Leicester and did homage to Henry III in 1231, though he was not formally styled earl of Leicester until April 1239. He speedily became one of Henry’s favourites, receiving an annual fee of 500 marks to compensate for the divided inheritance and exercising the hereditary stewardship at the coronation of Queen Eleanor (Eleanor of Provence; 1236). Henry arranged for his sister Eleanor to marry Simon on Jan. 7, 1238, thus breaking Eleanor’s earlier vow of chastity and offending the English noblemen, who were not consulted. Henry’s brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall, led an angry baronial protest, and Henry, alarmed, turned against Simon and Eleanor, driving them from England (August 1239). Simon went on Crusade (1240–42) with Richard, with whom he was now reconciled, and won great prestige among the lords of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, who asked their absentee king, the emperor Frederick II, to appoint Simon as his viceroy there. Returning to England, Simon joined Henry’s disastrous invasion of France (1242), winning distinction by covering Henry’s escape after his defeat at Saintes. Reconciled with Henry, and accepting an unfavourable settlement of Countess Eleanor’s dower claims, Simon now made Kenilworth Castle (a royal grant) his headquarters. He cultivated the friendship of the radical reformer Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, and took Robert’s friend, the Oxford Franciscan Adam de Marisco, as spiritual director. Although regarded as a king’s man, Simon was one of the committee of 12 appointed to handle the acute crisis of 1244 between Henry and his angry barons. He also took part in many important embassies to the French, papal, and imperial courts, and as a result he won many influential friends.

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In 1248 Henry asked Simon to pacify the English-held duchy of Gascony, in southwestern France. Simon, eager to join Louis IX’s Crusade, accepted reluctantly, stipulating for full powers as regent for seven years, without fear of recall and with full refund of expenses incurred. Treating the Gascon nobles as faithless rebels outside the law, he ruthlessly crushed the revolt and restored order; the Gascons appealed to Henry, accusing Simon of illegal procedure and oppression and threatening to renew their revolt. The matter was complicated by Simon’s personal contest with Gaston de Béarn, the leading rebel. Henry, frightened, recalled Simon for trial on the rebels’ charges; the English magnates acquitted him (1252), and he returned to Gascony to suppress the renewed revolt, but Henry now terminated his lieutenancy. Simon, accepting a partial financial settlement, withdrew to France, though Henry had to implore his help in his own campaign against the rebels in 1253. Such was Simon’s international reputation that when Louis IX’s mother, Blanche of Castile, died (November 1252) while Louis was still on Crusade, the French magnates invited Simon to succeed her as regent.

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Henry’s behaviour over Gascony, though not wholly unjustified, convinced Simon that Henry was unfit to rule, and the king’s disastrous undertaking, at Pope Innocent IV’s behest, to conquer Sicily for his son Edmund strengthened this conviction. Discussions with Grosseteste, Marisco, and other Franciscan intellectuals had fired Simon’s mind with visions of a new order in both church and state, and he joined the other leading English barons in forcing upon Henry the revolutionary Provisions of Oxford (June 1258). The reformers began well, but by October 1259 divisions appeared between the conservative wing, led by Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, that sought only to limit abuses of royal power, and the radical element, led by Simon, that sought to bind the entire baronage to observe the reforms forced upon the king and his officers. Simon exacerbated the quarrel by his arrogant vehemence and put himself in the wrong by attempting to use Henry’s subordination to secure settlement of his own and his wife’s justifiable personal claims on Henry. Henry, allying with the Gloucester faction, shattered baronial unity early in 1260, and Simon emerged leading the extremist defenders of the reforms. By October 1261 Henry had isolated Simon, who went abroad; but the king’s annulment of the Provisions, after he had received papal absolution from his oath to observe them, revived general disaffection (1262), and Simon returned (April 1263) to lead a rebellion that restored the Provisions (July 1263). But baronial unity had vanished, and, despite passionate support from the lesser barons, the county knights, the men of London and the Cinque Ports, and many clergy, Simon was forced to accept arbitration by Louis IX (December 1263). By the Mise of Amiens (January 1264) Louis totally annulled the Provisions and all consequent reforms: Simon rejected the award and after unsuccessfully attempting direct negotiations, defeated Henry at Lewes (May 14, 1264), capturing Henry and his son, the lord Edward.

Simon then governed England by military dictatorship, striving unsuccessfully for a legal basis of consent, both by negotiations with Henry’s supporters and by calling representatives of both shires and boroughs to Parliament (1265) to counterbalance his lack of baronial support. But his monopolization of power alienated his chief ally, the young Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, who joined the royalist Marcher lords and secured Lord Edward’s escape at Hereford (May 1265). By rapid and skillful maneuvering, Edward isolated Simon behind the Severn, destroyed at Kenilworth (August 1) the large army coming to his rescue, and trapped Simon’s little force at Evesham (Aug. 4, 1265), slaying Simon and most of his followers.

The most outstanding English personality of his day, Simon is remembered as an early advocate of a limited monarchy, ruling through elected councillors and responsible officials, and of parliaments including county knights and burgesses as well as the great nobles.

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