Cassell's History of England, Vol. 1 (of 8) / From the Roman Invasion to the Wars of the Roses

by Anonymous

The acts of slaughter by which this victory was followed appear in very unfavourable contrast to the humanity which had been displayed by Leicester and his associates on a similar occasion. The usages of chivalry were altogether lost sight of; and such was the hatred of the royalists towards their opponents, inflamed still further by the gallant resistance they had met with, that no mercy was shown to them. No prisoners were taken, no quarter was given to rich or poor, no offer of ransom stayed the uplifted arm of the smiter; and barons and knights, yeomen and citizens, were mingled in an indiscriminate slaughter.

Leicester was beyond the vengeance of his foes, but nevertheless they gratified their brutal rage upon his inanimate corpse, which they cut up and disfigured in a horrible manner, and in this state presented it to a lady, the wife of one of the earl's most deadly enemies, to whom they appear to have considered that it would prove an acceptable gift. According to their custom, the people of England declared the dead hero to be a martyr, and from the reported holiness of his past life, they considered it certain that miracles would be wrought by him after his death; and such was generally believed to be the case, although, for fear of the king, they did not dare openly to express their belief. Whatever degree of justice there may have been in the popular view of Leicester's character, his name was reverenced among the people for many years, under the title of Sir Simon the Righteous.

The victory of Evesham restored the king at once to his authority. He proceeded to Warwick, where his brother, the King of the Romans, had advanced to meet him, accompanied by many of the noble prisoners of Lewes, who now for the first time regained their liberty. Within a month afterwards a parliament assembled at Winchester. The king was little more than a cipher among the company of his barons. He knew that by their arms his success had been won, and that he owed their support not to any desire for an absolute monarchy, but to a resistance to a power which seemed likely to exceed that of royalty itself. Henry, therefore, made no attempt to revoke the Great Charter; and widely different as his real sentiments and desires may have been, he assented to those measures of constitutional government which were laid before him. But the parliament of Winchester was not proof against personal animosities, and it passed heavy sentences against the family and some of the adherents of Leicester, at the same time depriving the citizens of London of their charter.

Those were not the times in which such measures would be quietly submitted to. In every part of the kingdom some baron raised the standard of insurrection, and maintained a desultory warfare upon the troops and property of the king. Simon de Montfort the younger, with a small band of men, maintained a position for months in the isles of Axholme and Ely, while his retainers still held the castle of Kenilworth against repeated attacks. The Cinque Ports preserved an obstinate defence, and in the forests of Hampshire the famous Adam Gourdon defied the royal authority. This baron was one of the most gallant soldiers of his time, and from the recesses of the forest he conducted rapid movements against the royal troops, inflicting upon them heavy losses. Prince Edward took the field against the rebels, and during two years he had full opportunity of gratifying his taste for war. He passed hither and thither throughout the country, striking a blow now in this direction, now in that, and with varying success.

All the efforts of the prince proved unavailing to bring the insurgents to submission, and it became necessary to relax the stringent measures of punishment which had been adopted, and to make a display of clemency on the part of the government, as an inducement to the rebels to lay down their arms. For this purpose a committee was appointed, consisting of twelve bishops and barons, and their award, known as the "Dictum de Kenilworth," was formally adopted by the king and parliament. This award appears to have been generally received with satisfaction; but at this juncture the Earl of Gloucester quarrelled with the king, and assumed a warlike attitude, asserting that the Dictum of Kenilworth was not sufficiently lenient, nor such as the barons had a right to expect. The citizens of London, indignant at the loss of their charter, witnessed the dissension between the king and Gloucester with great satisfaction, and when the earl took up arms they opened their gates to receive him. But Gloucester was ill-prepared to maintain the contest on which he had entered, and at the approach of the royal army he demanded leave to negotiate. The permission was granted, and Gloucester obtained a pardon for himself on condition of entire submission to the king, while the Londoners purchased their safety for a fine of 25,000 marks.

Henry was naturally of a humane disposition, and he was further dissuaded from harsh measures by the letters of the Pope, who at this time exerted his influence in the cause of humanity and mercy. The determined attitude of the people also showed very clearly the wisdom of such a course of action. It is not an easy thing to conquer Englishmen, even by Englishmen, and the king had good reason to dread the prolonged hostility of his stubborn subjects. It would appear, however, that one chivalrous act on the part of Prince Edward contributed in no small degree to extinguish the spirit of disaffection. In a battle fought in a wood near Alton, the prince encountered the redoubtable Adam Gourdon in single combat. The prince struck him from his horse, and when the vanquished knight lay at his mercy, instead of dispatching him Edward gave him his life, and, on the same night, presented him honourably to the queen, and obtained for him a full pardon. The story ends like a romance, for we are informed that the prince "took Sir Adam de Gourdon into his especial favour, and was ever afterwards faithfully served by him."

On the 18th of November, 1267, a Parliament was held at Marlborough, in which the king adopted some of the most important enactments of the Earl of Leicester, and added to them other laws equally calculated to promote the welfare of the people. The resistance of the insurgents, which was by no means unreasonable, was almost immediately removed by these measures; one after another the barons threw down their arms, the last to do so being the fugitives of the Isle of Ely. These at length joined in accepting the Dictum de Kenilworth, which they had seen scrupulously fulfilled in the case of others.

The country being now restored to a state of tranquillity, Prince Edward took the cross, and determined to proceed to the Holy Land. The papal legate had actively urged him to take this step, and he had the example of Louis IX., afterwards called Saint Louis, who had lately departed on a second crusade. Before quitting the country, Edward took measures which displayed a high degree of wisdom and foresight, having for their object to preserve the peace of the realm during his absence. Among these was a new charter, securing to the citizens of London the restoration of their liberties, and a free pardon to all those nobles who still remained proscribed by the king. In the month of July, 1270, the prince departed with his wife Eleanor, his cousin Henry, the son of the King of the Romans, and nearly 200 English nobles and knights of high degree. The best and bravest of the chivalry of England had assembled round their gallant prince, with all the pomp and pageantry with which the nobles of that age marched forth to war; few, indeed, among them were likely ever to return; but such considerations affected them little, while the Church followed them with its blessing, and the minstrels accompanied them to sing the story of their prowess, and to raise their name from the dust. With the belief that he should attain honour here, and happiness in heaven, the soldier of the Cross might hurl a double defiance at death, and bear an undaunted brow over the deserts of Syria and the mountains of Judæa.

The young Henry d'Almaine, the son of the King of the Romans, was one of the first to perish in this disastrous expedition. The manner of his death was unusually tragic. He had been dispatched back to England by Edward upon some secret mission, and took his way through Italy, passing through the city of Viterbo, where a new Pope was then being elected. One morning, at an early hour, when he was engaged in saying prayers in one of the churches, he was suddenly aroused by a well-known voice at his side, which exclaimed, in menacing tones, "Thou traitor, thou shalt not escape us!" Turning round hastily, he perceived his two cousins, Simon and Guy de Montfort, who, with their mother the Countess of Leicester, had been driven out of England. The Countess was King Henry's sister, and her sons referred this harsh measure to the influence of the King of the Romans, who had ever been considered as their bitterest enemy. The two de Montforts were in complete armour, and, drawing their swords, they advanced upon their cousin Henry, who, utterly without means of defence, clung to the altar before which he had knelt, while two priests who were in the church threw themselves before him. But his foes were implacable: they neither respected the sanctuary, nor the persons of the ministers of God. The two priests were slain before the altar, and Henry, after being pierced with many wounds, was dragged outside of the church, where his body was mutilated by the murderers, in revenge for the indignities which had been inflicted upon the corpse of their father. They then effected their escape to the castle of the Count Aldobrandini, one of whose daughters had been married to Guy de Montfort, and by whom, it is related, they were protected from the consequences of their infamous deed.