Evesham fight did not end the war, for the three surviving sons of Simon, with the Earl of Derby and some other resolute friends, still held out. It took two years more to crush out the last sparks of civil strife, for the vanquished party fortified themselves in the castle of Kenilworth and the marshy isles of Ely and Axholme. But Edward gradually beat down all opposition, and the end of the war is marked by the Dictum of Kenilworth (October, 1266), in which the king solemnly confirms the Great Charter, and pardons all his opponents, on condition of their paying him a fine. Only the heirs of the Earls of Leicester and Derby were disinherited. The younger Montforts went into exile in Italy, where a little later they revenged themselves on the king by cruelly murdering his nephew Henry of Cornwall, as he was praying in Viterbo cathedral.
There is little to tell about the last five years of the reign of Henry III. The land gradually settled down into tranquillity, and we hear little more of the misgovernment which had rendered his early years so unbearable. Prince Edward went on a Crusade, when he saw that the realm was pacified. He greatly distinguished himself in the Holy Land, and took Nazareth from the infidels. He was still beating back the Saracen, when he was called home by the news of his father's decease. After a stormy life the old king had a peaceful ending, dying quietly in his bed on the 16th of November, 1272.
FOOTNOTE:
CHAPTER XI.
EDWARD I.
1272-1307.
Immediate accession of Edward.
The confidence and admiration which the English nation felt for Prince Edward were well shown by the fact that he was proclaimed king on the day of his father's death without any form of election by the Parliament. This was the first time that the English crown was transferred by strict hereditary succession, and that the old traditions of the solemn choice by the Great Council were neglected. Edward was still absent in Palestine, but the government was carried on in his name without trouble or friction till he landed in England on August 2, 1274. It was nineteen months since his father had died, yet nothing had gone amiss in the interval, so great was the belief of the English in the wisdom and justice of the coming king.
His character.