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THE LIFE OF SIMON DE MONTFORT . EARL OF LEICESTER
CHAPTER IV.
SIMON DE MONTFORT IN GASCONY.
It was in the year 1248 that Henry resolved to
send Simon de Montfort as his viceroy to Gascony. Henry’s experience,
gathered in the expedition of 1242, showed how untrustworthy were his
allies, how rebellious his subjects. At the head of the restless nobility
stood Gaston of Bearn; on the south the King of Navarre only waited for a
chance of attack; on the north the progress of France was always a cause of
anxiety. Surrounded by jealous neighbours, and torn
by internal faction, the rescue of the province demanded the
best man that could be sent—a soldier, statesman, and diplomatist in
one. The condition of England and the fickleness of Henry had had a
bad effect on the dependency; the seneschals had been changed nearly
twenty times since Henry came to the throne. Many of the merchants were
thinking of exporting their wine to Spain instead of England, and the King of
Aragon was ready, as we shall see, to bring forward a claim to the
province. Henry knew the danger, and gave Simon extraordinary
powers. He was called not by the usual title ‘seneschal’, but
‘locum-tenens’ of the king. Henry made him a grant of money, which however,
like most of his promises, seems to have remained unfulfilled; and secured to
him the revenues of his earldom for eight years after his death. Money was
borrowed for his first expenses, and large sums extorted from the Londoners.
With such funds hastily collected, and with royal authority for six years,
Simon started in the autumn of 1248, and on his way through France succeeded in
prolonging the truce, but only from September to Christmas 1248.
He immediately set to work with such energy that he
brought Gaston of Bearn to submission, and compelled the King of Navarre to
agree to the arbitration of a committee of four, to be chosen by the opposing
parties. He had taken prisoner one of the most prominent freebooters, Bertram
of Egremont, and returned at Christmas, much to the joy of the king and the
whole Court, to bring the news of his success, and take counsel as to his
future proceedings.
In February 1249 he returned to the Continent. On his
way through Paris he addressed a letter to the king, which shows the difficulty
of his position in Gascony, and the uncertainty of support at home. He tells
the king he has received news of a conspiracy of the Gascon nobles who had
forfeited their estates, which would be certain to break out about
Whitsuntide. His position is dangerous, since he befriends the lower
classes and defends the rights of the Crown, and therefore is hated by the
nobility. He wishes to speak with the king again, and to get sufficient
forces, for of the royal rents he cannot get a penny. Another difficulty is the
guerilla character of the war; the rebels move in troops of twenty to forty,
burning and pillaging as they go. But the most important and at reason why
he must speak with the king is, that his enemies will accuse him at Court, and
say he is the man who set the province all aflame with civil war. He then
assures the king of the good state of his castles and garrisons in Gascony, and
says that he will visit him as soon as his business in Paris is done.
His fear of Henry’s fickleness was only too well
justified. His position was indeed a hard one; no money,
no troops of the right sort—he probably wanted
some light-armed Welsh or Irish, such as were found useful on a later
occasion—a series of isolated castles to take, secret foes at home, and the
constant danger of a war with France.
Whether he returned home or not seems uncertain; at
any rate he found time in the course of the summer to bring the rebels again to
subjection. This time he sent Gaston of Bearn and others to England,
and proceeded to secure his conquests with a string of forts. His success
appears to have delighted the king, for in June we find him renewing to Simon
and his son his former gift of the Norman escheats within his fief, and in
November he allowed him the Irish revenues and the proceeds of the sale of the
royal wine, to fortify and protect the province But Henry’s weakness already
threw difficulties in his way. Some of the rebels seem to have escaped from
Gascony, and to have come of their own will to England to beg the kings mercy.
Of these Henry took hostages, and sent them back to be tried in Gascony, with
injunctions that they were to be treated with moderation; at the same time
destroying the whole effect of Simons work by pardoning Gaston of Bearn and
Arnold de Hasta. “Such a labour of Sisyphus was the
service of Henry III”. It may have been on this account that he returned to
England, for he was again in the country some time this year. We find the citizens of London appealing to him and other magnates
for protection in their suit with the Abbot of Westminster—a sufficient proof
that he had already won a reputation as a friend of the people. The magnates,
among whom was the king’s brother, immediately attacked the king and the abbot
with threats and reproaches, and compelled the former to retrace his steps.
This intervention on the part of Leicester is not likely to have put him on
better terms with the king. Nevertheless he went on bravely with his work. In
the course of the year 1249 he took the castle of Egremont, and forced the
Count of Fronzac, in accordance with his injunctions,
to submit. Finally, on the first Sunday of Advent, he compelled the
citizens of Bordeaux to settle their quarrel, and with this his victory,
in spite of the king’s folly, seemed to be
complete. No wonder his praise was in every ones mouth, and that he was
said “in all his dealings to have followed nobly in his father’s steps”
In a task like his constant effort was needed, and for
constant effort constant supplies. But these it was impossible to
obtain; a well-regulated finance was one of the most conspicuous wants in
the England of the day. The scanty aid from home was soon
exhausted; Simon’s private means followed. At Epiphany
1251 he was again in England. He seems to have returned some time in the winter of 1250-1251, arriving worn and
travel-stained at his home, with only three
attendants. In February 1251 he was with the queen at
Windsor, endeavouring, it would seem, to persuade his
sister-in-law to use her influence in his behalf. But others had been
there before him, and though the king could not resist his appeal when made
face to face, the answer shows what had been going on behind the earls
back. He had been accused of severity and injustice, and even treachery,
and it is evident the king more than half believed the reports. Still, so
bravely had he fought, and so emphatically did he deny the charge, and remind
the king of his own experiences in Gascony, that Henry could not
resist. “By the head of God, Sir Earl”, said he, “thou hast said the
truth, and I will not refuse thee aid, since thou hast fought so well. But
grievous complaints have come up to me, how that those who came to thee, aye,
even those whom thou summonedst as if in good faith,
thou hast thrown into prison and allowed to perish in their bonds”. With this
surly acquiescence the earl had to content himself. The requisite men and money
were raked together from all quarters, from the Leicester estates, from
Flanders, and elsewhere. With them Simon returned to Gascony, accompanied by
his wife, in the autumn of 1251, and put down the rebels for the third time.
His expenses, doubtless, were great; Adam Marsh had to write to the countess,
warning her not to increase them by luxury and display in dress, and to beware
of giving way to licence of tongue, lest she should
thereby increase her husband’s difficulties; on the other hand, she was to help
him in every way, to keep him to his engagements, to restrain him from lavish
expenditure.
It was a hydra-headed opposition that he had to meet.
He might drive his foes before him in Gascony; it was only that they might
reappear in more dangerous form in England. Fortunately he had friends at home,
who kept him informed of the state of affairs. He had been encouraged during
his last stay in England by news from Adam Marsh of a favourable change in the attitude of the king. During his absence in Gascony, Adam wrote
to him words of comfort in his difficulties, referred him to the
example of patience in the Book of Job, and added more earthly consolation
in the shape of reports of conversation held with the king, who showed himself
at heart well inclined, if it were not for the influence of those about
him. But this news was soon followed by worse; the king, wrote Adam,
had been much annoyed by certain utterances of Simon which had come to his
ears; the earl is therefore warned to set a watch upon his tongue, for “the
heart of fools is in their mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his
heart”. The good friar had however himself incurred the displeasure of the
king by boldness of speech, and could no longer further the earls business at
court. The more precious must have been the assistance of his steadfast friend,
Bishop Grosseteste, in whose care he had left his two eldest sons on his
departure for Gascony. It was evident however that his presence Simon was
wanted at home, and shortly before Christmas 1251 he returned with his wife to
England.
The feeling of the king towards him was by no means favourable, and though Henry came to meet him it was not to
see him, but his half-brother Guy of Lusignan, who came over with the
earl. Simon had left behind him men whom he could trust in possession of
his castles; but this did not prevent the Gascons from rising again as soon as
his back was turned. They pretended not to rise against the king, but
against the tyranny of his lieutenant. He was, they said, the real traitor,
for he extorted from nobles and worthy citizens money to enrich himself, and
hid the truth from the king; they repeated the old accusations of false
imprisonment, and the like. Henry, ever, at once distrustful and credulous,
could not altogether disbelieve the reports of Simons doings, and doubtless his
action had been violent and his wrath severe enough to give some colour of truth to these stories. Henry failed to see that
the earl ought to be supported to the utmost, that if he could not grant him
pecuniary aid, he could and should at least give him his moral support. But
jealousy and ungenerous dread of greatness would not let him be convinced. When
the earl demanded why he trusted traitors rather than him, his tried and
faithful servant, Henry only answered that, if he knew himself to be honest, he
ought to be thankful enough for an investigation. It is very probable, from
what we know of Simon’s temper, that he quenched rebellion sharply and sternly;
he was not the man to bear gently with the open and secret resistance he had to
meet; but the castled brigands of Gascony could not be put down by gentle
means, and we should have heard little of these complaints had not the kings
suspicious ear drunk in only too greedily all that the enemies of his great
lieutenant chose to pour into it. The voices of the lower orders, and the
merchants whom he protected by destroying the robbers’ nests, could not be
heard; the way in which the peace was made between him and certain of the
citizens of Bordeaux testified in vain to the growth of those constitutional
principles, and that sympathy with the people, which characterized his later
life. But the clamour of his enemies
travelled across the sea, and found easy entrance at the English
Court. Simon de Montfort and the rebels of Gascony were regarded as
having equal claims to respect.
Accordingly, in spite of the possibility of a war with
Navarre, and the certainty that such proceedings would put new life into the
efforts of the malcontents in Gascony, a committee of eleven English nobles was
appointed on January 4, 1252, to examine into the justice of de Montfort’s
demands for aid; while at the same time two commissioners were sent out to make
enquiries into the matter in the province itself, and in fact to supersede
Simon in the settlement of breaches of the truce with France. Orders were given
to the citizens of Bordeaux to send six delegates to England to plead their cause before the king. The commissioners sent to Gascony
were Rocelin de Fos, Master
of the Templars in England, apparently of Gascon extraction, and Henry of Wingham, a former governor of Gascony. The result of their
investigations was what might have been expected; the Gascon gave his verdict
for his countrymen; the Englishman, who knew what it was to be seneschal in
Gascony, was equally positive on the other side. The presence of the
king’s half-brother, William of Valence, who, as we shall see later, was no
friend of Simon, did not contribute to a satisfactory
settlement. The commissioners seem however to have been of one mind
in refusing to accept the excuses of Gaston and his friends, who used a
political quarrel among the citizens of La Reole as a
pretext for occupying the citadel. Meanwhile the citizens of La Reole, or some part of them, addressed a letter of
complaint to the king, in which they inveighed against the treatment of their
hostages by Leicester, and the taxes levied by him. It was these taxes that
seem to have caused the disturbance, for the party that was inclined to the
English entered the castle, where they were supported by Leicester, and
attacked by Gaston and his associates. A truce was brought about by the
Archbishop of Bordeaux, and according to him was broken by both sides
simultaneously. Simons lieutenant, William Pigorel,
acted energetically in the affair, and therefore had to bear the chief brunt of
the attack. Whether Simon was in Gascony at this time or not seems uncertain;
he appears to have returned thither about the middle of March 1252. He was at
Court shortly before, and had entered into a solemn engagement with the king to
lay all his pecuniary transactions before commissioners, the king promising at
the same time to pay him whatever should appear from their decision to be due.
At the same time he was to give up three castles into the king’s hands before
Whitsuntide, a step nearly equivalent to putting them into the power of his
enemies. Although power was given him to raise two thousand marks for official
purposes, to be accounted for before the commission, he does not seem to have
taken any measures during this visit to Gascony which were calculated to cause
a fresh outbreak. The object of his journey was probably to collect
witnesses on his own side for the approaching trial. These,
it must be confessed, he seems afterwards to have richly revisits
rewarded. He must have left England before March 23, for on that day the
king wrote to him bidding him not to go, but the letter arrived too late. He
returned to England shortly after his accusers, probably early in May.
The commissioners on arriving in Gascony had commanded
a suspension of hostilities, and shown letters from the king inviting the
malcontents to send delegates to England. This they were at first
unwilling to do, but agreed on the condition that peace should be maintained during their absence. An
agreement which Simon had forced upon his enemies, that they would not appeal
against him, was cancelled. This was of course a necessity, and it is hard to
see what can have induced Simon to insist on so untenable a stipulation, and
one which would be so likely to prejudice men’s minds against
him. Be that as it may, the cancelling of the agreement went still further
to undermine his authority, and prejudged the case before it came before the
court. The Gascon delegates arrived in England towards the end of April; but
the king, though every minute of delay was so much loss to his power abroad,
sent out another commission, consisting like the first of a Gascon and an
Englishman, the latter, like Henry of Wingham, a
former seneschal. They were but a short time absent, and on their return
declared their opinion that, although Simon had in some cases dealt severely,
it was no more than the delinquents deserved. Whereupon the Gascons vehemently
demanded a trial, and a day was fixed. Meanwhile the earl had returned in great
haste to England, and fortunately his partisans, with Richard of Cornwall, the
Earl of Gloucester, and other chief men of the kingdom at their head, mustered
in force to prevent the unjust action which it was feared the king would take.
The trial, if such it could be called, began early in May, and for a whole
month the delegates, a numerous body, poured forth a flood of accusation
against the earl. The king showed his incapacity as a judge by frequent
interruption and contumely directed against the accused, all of which Simon
bore with great moderation and self-command. Among his friends there are said
to have been only three who were of real use to him, the Bishop of Worcester,
Peter of Savoy, the queen’s uncle, and Peter de Montfort, Simon’s cousin. The
rest were lavish in their praise, and in promises of assistance; but these were
little more than words. The Bishop of Lincoln, who would doubtless have been
his staunchest partisan, was not present. The Gascons brought forward their old
accusations, and tried to support their case by a reference to the supposed
prosperity of the country under former governments. It was with great
difficulty that Simon and his adherents obtained an audience, but, on this
being granted, he related in order all the events of his lieutenancy, proving
his assertions by trustworthy witnesses. After him, his partisans from Gascony,
armed with letters from the commons of Bordeaux, showed to the satisfaction of
all present how well Simon had discharged his duty, proving that the only
reason of the opposition he encountered was the energy with which he put down
sacrilege, murder, and crime of all sorts. “It is very possible” said Simon,
turning to his accusers, “that I have taken away from you privileges granted by
Earl Richard and my predecessors, but it is because you got them by
dissimulation and forfeited them by treachery. Who is to believe
you, whom the king himself has found to be no friends, but foes and
impostors?”
The earl and his party were ready to submit to trial
by combat, or any other mode of decision, in
England or Gascony, whichever their opponents should
choose; but the latter would agree to nothing. At length even the king was
obliged to own that the plaintiffs could not prove their case, and the whole
court chimed in with its approval. Leicester then bade the king
make good his word; he had ruined his estate, he said, in
the king’s service: the king should at least pay his debts. The
king gave vent to his vexation at the failure of the trial in the hasty answer,
that with a traitor and supplanter like him he thought it no shame not to keep
his word. Thereupon Simon could keep his temper no longer; he sprang to his
feet and gave the king the lie. “And but that thou bearest the name of king” he added; “it had been a bad hour for thee when thou utteredst such a word. Who would believe thou art a
Christian? Hast thou ever confessed?” “I have” said the king. “What is
confession worth without repentance?” asked de Montfort. “Never did I repent of
aught so much” retorted Henry, “as of suffering thee to enter England, and win honour and land therein, that thou mightest grow fat and kick”. The scene was cut short by the intervention of the
bystanders; it remains as a valuable illustration of the two men, the weakness
and vehemence, the injustice and imprudence, which characterised the king; the equally violent passions, the impatience of contradiction and
control, which were the most conspicuous blots on the character of de Montfort.
His moral superiority over Henry is evident throughout. The attitude of the
rest of the baronage towards Leicester is very remarkable. Sixteen years before
they had joined to thrust him from the country as an alien and an upstart, and
it was all Henry could do to protect him from their wrath. The same body now
assembled to defend him from the injustice of his sovereign, and when Henry
again brought the subject before them, in the autumn of 1252, they turned upon
him with reproaches, tauntingly alluding to his failures, and declared it was
right well done if the earl had striven to destroy the whole pack of
Gascon thieves.
The trial was over, and Simon gave the king the
alternative, of letting him return to Gascony with
full powers, whether the matters in dispute were
decided or not, or of allowing him to resign, on condition that he and his
should be secured from loss or damage of any kind. But the king, as usual,
preferred half-measures; he sought to prevent disturbance by a series of
edicts, to hold good till he should appear in person; guardians of
the truce were appointed, being the two Gascons who had acted as commissioners
in Bordeaux; jurors were to be chosen equally from the two
parties. Meanwhile Bertram of Egremont had been set at liberty; authority
was given to the Bishop of Bordeaux to
examine into certain questions in dispute; the power of the
king’s lieutenant could hardly have been less had he been formally
deposed. The province was given over again to its former state of
anarchy. Simon was then dismissed with the words “Go back to Gascony, thou
who lovest to stir up war; there thou mayst find
plenty, and get the same well-merited reward which thy father got before
thee”. This too before the Gascons, who, we are told, were highly
delighted by the kings wit, and the taunting reference to the elder Simon and
his fate. But the earl only answered, “Willingly do I go, and I will not
return till I have subdued thy rebellious subjects, and placed thy enemies
beneath thy feet”. With that he retired, and crossing at once with his eldest
son to France, soon drew together in the country of his birth, by the help of
his family and friends, a sufficient force, with which, burning for revenge, he
marched upon Gascony. He stayed some time at Boulogne on his way, and seems to
have wished to see and consult Adam Marsh on affairs of importance. The
Countess of Leicester went to Oxford, but failed to persuade the Franciscan to
undertake the journey. A little later Adam wrote to the earl, announcing the
approaching confinement of his wife, and rebuking him for carrying off the
parish priest at Odiham to be his chaplain.
The delegates returned to Gascony in high displeasure
at the attitude of the English nobility, having first done homage to Prince
Edward, on whom the king now formally conferred the province. But on their
arrival they found the earl awaiting them. The ridiculous precautions taken by
the king in the hope of keeping peace were seen in a moment to be worthless;
both sides at once proceeded to hostilities. The Gascons had at first a slight
success, and, routing an ambuscade set for them, carried off a certain knight,
a dear friend of the earl. Thereupon Simon roused himself as if out of sleep.
Asking him who brought the news whether the enemy were far off, he at once set
spurs to his horse, and, without waiting for his followers, attacked the enemy
with all the headlong vehemence which distinguished him in battle. He speedily
released the prisoner, but was unhorsed and surrounded. ;The Gascons turned all
their force against him, and he was in the greatest danger, when the knight
whom he had rescued clove his way through the press, and, mounting the earl
upon his horse, brought him out unharmed. The battle lasted half victory of the
day, but ended in the complete rout of the enemy. Five of the chief nobles were
taken, and the Gascons did not dare again to meet de Montfort in the field.
Soon after this the news of Henry’s last attempt against him, alluded to above,
was brought to the earl, who only remarked, “I knew the king would make the
attempt, in order to enrich some Poitevin or
Provençal with my earldom”. Meanwhile however strenuous efforts were being made
at home by the countess in his behalf, and in her attempts to mitigate the
kings anger she was supported by the queen, with whom she was on excellent
terms. Eleanor’s influence over her brother, that of a strong character over a
weak one, had always been considerable, and doubtless contributed largely to
the change we find taking place shortly after these events in the king’s
attitude towards the earl.
Towards the end of the year 1252 Simon retired into
France. It is a striking testimony to his widespread fame, and the general
respect for his character, that the French nobility, after the death of the
Queen Regent and during the absence of Louis IX on crusade, offered him a place
among the guardians of the the Crown, and the office
of High Steward of France with all the honours appertaining to it. It is a still more striking proof of the justice of that
estimate that he twice declined this splendid offer, being unwilling to prove a
renegade from the service of him who had called him a traitor a few months
before. Hardly had Simon turned his back on Gascony than the miserable country
was again in uproar. Civil war broke out; every man’s hand was against his neighbour; Gaston of Bearn transferred his allegiance to
the King of Aragon. Some authorities declare that the king deposed Simon in the
autumn of 1252, and ordered the edict to be proclaimed in Gascony. If this is
true, it is probably the reason why he left the country. His last expedition
seems to have been undertaken merely with the object of taking private
vengeance on his foes, and not in his quality of seneschal. Even if he had not
been formally dismissed, the events of the past year must have shown him that
it would be impossible for him any longer to hold the province. At any rate he
practically resigned his post in the winter of 1252-1253. He was afterwards
compensated in a pecuniary point of view, at least to some extent, for the
remaining two years of his term of office. He remained inactive in France some
time, and looked on at the failure of all attempts to allay the disorder. The
king arrived at Bordeaux early in September 1253, having placed the Regency in
the hands of the queen and the Earl of Cornwall. As late as April he had, or
pretended to have, the intention of going to the Holy Land; when he was on the
point of starting for Gascony the Pope excommunicated all who should disturb
the kingdom during his absence in Palestine. The crusades were a pretext
which Henry and the Pope knew well how to use.
On his arrival in Gascony Henry succeeded in
recovering his own castles, though at great loss; his army suffered terribly
from privations. At the same time he busied himself in furthering the
marriage of his son Edward to the sister of the King of Castile, and of his
daughter Beatrice to the eldest son of the King of Aragon. He hoped
doubtless to anticipate any attempts on Gascony from that side. His efforts
towards subjugating the country were confined to the destruction of vineyards.
He released his prisoners, who at once rejoined their companions. Soon after
his arrival he had summoned Simon de Montfort to his aid, but apparently in
vain. Matters were now looking so hopeless that he had to repeat his request in
a humbler tone, begging the earl to come and treat with him, promising him a
safe conduct and leave to return if he wished to do so. At the same time
he made efforts to conciliate him by grants of money. Simon’s influence in
France was invaluable to the king, and he was begged to bring with him all the
light troops he could find. At length he gave way. If he had seen with secret
joy the king’s distress, he had now the serene satisfaction of returning good
for evil. The last words of the old Bishop of Lincoln are said to have prompted
him to this exercise of charity; he obeyed “that dear friend who had been to
him as a father confessor” and went with a large force to the king’s
assistance. The Gascons, who feared him like a thunderbolt, gave way at once;
the Pope opportunely excommunicated Gaston of Bearn and his associates, and the
province was again reduced to order. Financial difficulties were settled
between the brothers-in-law, at least in some degree, and the breach was for
the time healed over. How long Simon remained with the king we do not know. He
may have spent Christmas with the Court, and have returned with Earl Richard
and other magnates immediately afterwards for the Parliament which met in
January 1254 to discuss the king’s demands for aid. He was in England at any
rate by Easter of that year. Whether it was want of money, or the arrangements
for Prince Edwards marriage, which kept Henry at Bordeaux, is not clear; at any
rate he remained there in wasteful idleness till the autumn of 1254, and then
returned by way of Paris, where the two Courts vied with each other in splendour and extravagance, to England. He landed at Dover
shortly after Christmas in that year.
CHAPTER V.
PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, 1249-1257.
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