Award of Amiens. 1264.
It fails.
While the parties were thus already beginning to appeal to arms, in January 1264, the King of France published his verdict at Amiens. It was entirely in favour of the Crown, and annulled the Provisions of Oxford, especially declaring that the King had right to employ aliens as the governors of his castles. The verdict was clear enough, and Henry believed that it put him entirely in the right. On the other hand a clause was added of which the Barons took hold to support their cause. By this it was asserted that the verdict was not intended to derogate in anything from the royal privileges, charters, liberties and laudable customs of the kingdom. With this loophole for variety of opinion, the award left the main question unsettled, although it enabled a certain number of those who were pledged to the Provisions, but disliked the Barons’ rule, to join the King. Among others, his brother Richard, the King of the Romans, took advantage of this opportunity. Still unwilling to press their claims to the uttermost, the Barons offered to accept the award, excepting only the one clause, which was in fact the point for which they were fighting, that, namely, which permitted the employment of aliens. The Londoners would not even go so far as this.
War, and battle of Lewes. May 14.
The Mise of Lewes.
The King refused their offer, and war became inevitable. It began by the capture of Northampton by Prince Edward, and gradually drifted southward, till the two armies met at Lewes. The King occupied the town, with the castle and priory; the Barons, the down to the west. The battle ended in a decisive victory for the Barons. Prince Edward, carried away by his anger against the Londoners, whom he despised and hated, was induced to pursue an advantage he had won over them too far. Richard, the King of the Romans, was misled into an attack upon a cage-shaped litter, which he believed to contain De Montfort, who had been wounded by a fall from his horse. De Montfort had purposely left it in his rear, together with his standards and baggage; it really contained only four refractory Londoners of the King’s party. These two errors on the part of the enemy secured the victory to De Montfort; and when Prince Edward returned from his pursuit, he found the battle lost, and the struggle only prolonged by the fighting round the castle at Lewes. De Montfort, evidently the victor, offered to put an end to the bloodshed by an immediate truce; and an agreement known as the Mise of Lewes was made, by which the questions at issue were to be settled by a court of arbitration consisting of two Frenchmen and one Englishman. The two Princes, Edward and Henry d’Almeyne, were to remain in captivity meanwhile, in exchange for their fathers, the King and his brother Richard, who had been taken prisoners; and the prisoners on both sides were to be released.
Appointment of revolutionary government.
De Montfort was for the time completely master of the country. He at once proceeded to act with vigour to bring the country into order. The King’s peace was proclaimed everywhere. The prisoners were exchanged, and till the open question with regard to the election of sheriffs should be settled, guardians of the peace were appointed for each county. In the offices thus created, as well as in those of the King’s Council, the friends and followers of Simon were put. A Parliament was then called, which assembled in June, at which it is probable that knights of the shire were present. At this Parliament a committee of three was appointed, who nominated nine others, in whose hands the government was to be placed. If the nine could not come to agreement, the final decision remained with the three, who were the Bishop of Chichester, Simon de Montfort, and Gilbert de Clare. At the same time the affairs of the Church were put in order, its grievances being left to the settlement of three bishops appointed by statute.
Exiles assemble at Damme.
Montfort desires final settlement.