To Simon and most of the barons the Award was intolerable, and when Henry returned from France with a large force ready to take the vengeance which the Award had forbidden, civil war could not be prevented. London rallied to Simon, and Oxford, the Cinque Ports, and the friars were all on the side of the barons against the King.
On May 14th, 1264, a pitched battle at Lewes ended in complete victory for Simon, and found the King, Prince Edward, and the kinsmen and chief supporters of the Crown prisoners in his hands.
Peace was made, and a treaty—the Mise of Lewes—drawn up and signed. Once more the King promised to keep the Provisions and Charters, and to dismiss the aliens. He also agreed to live thriftily till his debts were paid, and to leave his sons as hostages with Earl Simon.
Simon at once set about the work of reform. The King's Standing, or Privy, Council was reconstituted, and the Parliamentary Commissioners were abolished, "for Simon held it as much a man's duty to think and work for his country as to fight for it." A marked difference is seen between Simon's policy at Oxford and the policy after Lewes. The Provisions of 1258 were restrictive. The Constitution of 1264 deliberately extended the limits of Parliament. "Either Simon's views of a Constitution had rapidly developed, or the influences which had checked them in 1258 were removed. Anyhow, he had genius to interpret the mind of the nation, and to anticipate the line which was taken by later progress."[[20]] What Simon wanted was the approval of all classes of the community for his plans, and to that end he issued writs for the Parliament—the Full Parliament—of 1265.
The great feature of this Parliament was that for the first time the burgesses of each city and borough were summoned to send two representatives. In addition, two knights were to come from each shire, and clergy and barons as usual—though in the case of the earls and barons only twenty-three were invited, for Simon had no desire for the presence of those who were his enemies. The Full Parliament sat till March, and then two months later war had once more blazed out. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester broke away from Simon, Prince Edward escaped from custody, and these two joined Lord Mortimer and the Welsh Marchers.
On August 4th Edward surprised and routed the army of the younger Simon near Kenilworth, and then advanced to crush the great Earl, who was encamped at Evesham, waiting to join forces with his son. All hope of escape for Earl Simon was lost, and he was outnumbered by seven to two. But fly he would not. One by one the barons who stood by Simon were cut down, but though wounded and dismounted, the great Earl "fought on to the last like a giant for the freedom of England, till a foot soldier stabbed him in the back under the mail, and he was borne down and slain." For three hours the unequal fight lasted in the midst of storm and darkness, and when it was over the Grey Friars carried the mangled body of the dead Earl into the priory at Evesham, and laid it before the high altar, for the poorer clergy and the common people all counted Simon of Montfort for a saint.
"Those who knew Simon praise his piety, admire his learning, and extol his prowess as a knight and skill as a general. They tell of his simple fare and plain russet dress, bear witness to his kindly speech and firm friendship to all good men, describe his angry scorn for liars and unjust men, and marvel at his zeal for truth and right, which was such that neither pleasure nor threats nor promises could turn him aside from keeping the oath he swore at Oxford; for he held up the good cause 'like a pillar that cannot be moved, and, like a second Josiah, esteemed righteousness the very healing of his soul.' As a statesman he wished to bind the King to rule according to law, and to make the King's Ministers responsible to a Full Parliament; and though he did not live to see the success of his policy, he had pointed out the way by which future statesmen might bring it about."[[21]]
In the hour of Simon's death it might seem that the cause of good government was utterly lost, and for a time Henry triumphed with a fierce reaction. But the very barons who had turned against Simon were quite determined that the Charters should be observed, and Edward was to show, on his coming to the throne, that he had grasped even more fully than Simon the notion of a national representative assembly, and that he accepted the principle, "that which touches all shall be approved by all."
Henry III. died in 1272, and it was not till two years later that Edward I. was back in England from the crusades to take up the crown. It was an age of great lawgivers; an age that saw St. Louis ruling in France, Alfonso the Wise in Castile, the Emperor Frederick II.—the Wonder of the World—in Sicily. In England Edward shaped the Constitution and settled for future times the lines of Parliamentary representative government.