Whether the King fell before or after de Montfort’s charge is uncertain—those who killed him were with the second crusading squadron. In either case his fall and the flank charge decided the day, and a general rout ensued. The 500 knights of his household, unsupported by the rest of the leaderless mass of horsemen, fell almost to a man around his body. The southerners paid a bitter price for Pedro’s chivalrous folly in jamming himself into the fighting and thereby giving up all attempt to direct operations. Raymond and the Count of Comminges seem never to have been engaged at all. We hear of them only as fleeing from the field. Count Simon, on the other hand, was as wise in victory as he had been furious in attack. While directing or, more probably, permitting the pursuit of the fugitives by his first two squadrons, he kept the third squadron (his own immediate command) well under control, and followed the pursuit at a distance so as to intervene in case of a rally. After a short pursuit, as soon as he judged that the fleeing enemy horsemen were incapable of renewing the battle and were making for Toulouse, he recalled the pursuers, and at the head of his three squadrons returned towards Muret.
Meanwhile the Toulousain communal militia had altogether misconceived the result of the cavalry action. Only a part of these troops had taken part in Foix’s unsuccessful attack and subsequent rout at the hands of the first crusading squadron; and of that part only those north of the Louge had actually endured the crusading charge and the rout. Those between the Louge and the Garonne had merely retreated, hastily enough, no doubt, in order to conform to the flight of those north of the brook. By far the greater part of them, therefore, were quite fresh. At first they barricaded themselves in their camp, fearing they would be attacked. But townsmen in mediæval warfare were apt to suffer from rashness; one of many examples is the behaviour of the Londoners at Lewes in 1264. It has been supposed that dust may have hidden the cavalry flight from the Toulousains, or there may have been clumps of trees to block their view. Knowing de Montfort to be heavily outnumbered, they believed a rumour of his defeat, sallied out from their camp and beset the town from all sides.
In Muret, Count Simon’s victory was already known by messenger. Bishop Fulk, therefore, sent to tell his obstreperous flock of this, and offered them mercy, but they would not believe, and wounded his parlementaire. Startled at the sight of the Crusaders, returning victorious, and about to fall upon the rear of their extended formation, they broke up in a panic and were slaughtered far and wide. Some made for the camp and were killed there, others ran for the boats which had brought up their siege material and were now anchored about a mile north of the town.
A few of these last escaped so, but most were butchered on the high banks by de Montfort’s people.
In 1875 a flood of the Garonne undercut and brought down much of the bank, revealing an immense mass of their bones opposite Saubens, and about 700 yards upstream from that village. Other skeletons are scattered about to the north of this spot; to this day they are turned up sometimes by the spade and the plough.
Such are the true elements of the Battle of Muret.
The total losses of the vanquished were enormous, while the victors lost only one knight and, at most, eight “sergeants”—a fully-armed man in a position to defend himself was already in 1213 so completely protected by his chainmail armor. Infantry normally accounted for most mediæval battle casualties, and, of course, the dismounted and wounded knights of the losing side could be massacred if the victors so chose, as they emphatically did on this occasion.
On the other hand, de Montfort shed tears over Pedro’s dead body—“like a second David over a second Saul.” The King had never been excommunicated, accordingly his corpse was allowed burial in consecrated ground at the hands of the Hospitallers, who asked permission so to do.
Muret wiped out Aragon as a factor in Languedocian politics. Raymond, with his son, later Count Raymond VII, fled the country and made for the court of England. Apparently, one of his last acts was the capture of his bastard brother Baldwin, who had gone over to de Montfort, and was now surprised and taken prisoner. Raymond promptly had him hanged. There was even a story that the Count of Foix himself tied the noose. A few months earlier King John had done homage to the Pope, and was now preparing, with Otto, to seek a military decision against Philip Augustus, whose vassals he was corrupting with might and main. He received Raymond kindly, and presented him with 10,000 marks, but could give no other assistance until he had settled accounts with the King of France. Raymond swore him homage, and seems to have stayed in England for some months. Meanwhile de Montfort triumphantly crossed the Rhône and mastered much of Raymond’s “Marquisate of Provence” to the east of that river. Merely to keep his hand in, he indulged in a small war in the county of Foix. With Pedro dead, there was no one capable of taking the field against the Crusade.
There were, however, three limitations to de Montfort’s success. The first was military; his force was so small that he could not think of doing anything against the city of Toulouse itself. The citizens felt so safe that they began by offering only sixty of their number as hostages to Bishop Fulk, instead of the two hundred which he demanded, and when he accepted the offer of sixty they refused to furnish any at all. De Montfort made a military demonstration up to the walls, but when the gates were kept closed against him he did not even attack. The second limitation was political, the Pope was by no means prepared to set up an altogether new secular authority in Languedoc, and was now determined to bring peace to that unhappy country. The third was also political; the cities which had given him a certain welcome as the maintainer of public order, now that order was restored were restive at the continued presence of “Frenchmen,” whom they heartily disliked.