After reading of the young Simon de Montfort’s jousting contest with a wayward highwayman, enthusiastically portrayed in the first few pages, it became clear that this is the adventure story craved by the motion picture industry, and I thought immediately of young Australian-born actor Chris Egan, who might make a superb Simon in an eventual movie dramatization.

From Montfort’s battlefield victories, to his marriage, to a brief fling with Henry’s Eleanor (whilst wed to another woman), accentuated by the release of a hawk, once its presence no longer assured a loving — yet forbidden — relationship enjoyed away from prying eyes, the young man exhibits a powerful, yet eternally conflicted personality.

When was mixing historical fact with story-telling ever not risky business? Nevertheless, Ashe’s obvious confidence in her laborious research has resulted in an historical viewpoint worth the trouble.

The trappings of known-world Church influence are illustrated magnificently, right down to an individual level where Simon is instructed to self-flagellate his sins away, whilst also trembling in fear when Bishop Grosseteste predicts that the tragic death of both child and father will occur simultaneously one day.

A section at the end placing significant passages and words in historical context is also helpful for the reader, who will benefit even more intimately from the author’s search for knowledge about Simon de Montfort and his era. Well done.

“Between 1258 and 1265, communitas regni, the slogan of the political discourse in the 13th century, came closest to a real and relevant existence from a social standpoint.” as Simon’s most recent biographer said.

To a certain extent, the action of the English reformers under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, can be considered to be the implementation of the political theories formulated by the scholars of the period. One of these scholars was John of Salisbury who, in his work Policraticus (1159), tried to define the ideal form of government: “When divine law (iustitia) is not manifest, natural law (aequitas) – the application of a person’s ability to reason and to be fair (ratio et ius) – may intervene.” (John of Salisbury) The baronial movement revolted against the prerogatives enjoyed by the king at the time, considering that King Henry was not fulfilling his duties to the community as a whole. This is an interpretation of Salisbury’s conclusion that “if society possesses a certain, fictional persona corporis, then it must materialise in the figure of the leader, the physical expression of justice itself. He is the imago deitas but also imago aequitas and can remain king as long as he represents the equilibrium of society, between the part and the whole, between the divine and the natural… In order to become a policraticus, the leader, be it king or pope, has to be the ideal, social human being.”

Montfort’s political manifesto of 1264, the year when royal power fell under the reformers’ control, was disseminated in the form of a ballad, composed by the Franciscan monks, The Song of Lewes. In this song, Montfort was depicted as a vassal faithful to his sovereign, whose obligation was to maintain the cooperation between king and community through the agency of a council. The authors admitted that the noblemen faithful to the king despised the reformers’ ideology, dismissing it as “priest talk”. This is a reference to the fact that Simon de Montfort based his political beliefs on the political and religious writings of the Oxford University, considering the great theologian and philosopher, Robert Grosseteste, the patron of the Franciscans, as his mentor.

The comparison between the state and a living organism was one of the most widespread political ideas of the Middle Ages. In all of the existing variants, the comparison served to define the station and role of every individual, as well as their relationship with society as a whole.

“The human community is described as a living body, created by God like everything else in this world and subject to natural law (aequitas). The king represents the head of this organism. The Royal Council is its heart, the justiciars and those responsible with public order are the eyes, the ears and the tongue; the courtiers are the chest, those who govern are the unarmed hand whereas the soldiers represent the armed hand. Those in charge of the finances represent the stomach and the internal organs while the other workers represent the legs. And, in the same way in which the human body is governed by the soul, the political body has to submit to the clergy, who stand as the soul of the state.” (John of Salisbury –Policraticus)

This concept of the state as a living organism was developed in the following century by Marsiglio of Padova who “[…] in a manner similar to Aristotle, defines the state as an organism, a living being, whose component parts have to function in perfect harmony.”

I am sending you the coat of arms of Elizabeth Woodville before she became the Queen of Edward IV,. Here it is with its official explanation, from an official site of queens.

You will see that the Orsini coat of arms is there (and it is going to stay on Elizabeth’s coat of arms as Queen). Everyone in England knew of her mother Jaquetta de Luxembourg’s Italian great grand parents. Please read Jaquetta’s wikipedia biography:

Jacquetta’s father Peter I of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol was also the hereditary Count of Brienne from 1397 to his death in 1433.

Peter had succeeded his father John, Lord of Beauvoir and mother Marguerite of Enghien. They had co-reigned as Count and Countess of Brienne from 1394 to her death in 1397.John was a fourth-generation descendant of Waleran I of Luxembourg, Lord of Ligny, second son of Henry V of Luxembourg and Margaret of Bar. This cadet line of the House of Luxembourg reigned in Ligny-en-Barrois.
Her mother Margaret de Baux was a daughter of Francois de Baux, Duke of Andria, and of Sueva Orsini. Sueva was a daughter of Nicola Orsini, Count of Nola (27 August 1331 – 14 February 1399) and Jeanne de Sabran.
Nicola Orsini was a son of Roberto Orsini, Count of Nola (1295-1345) and Sibilla del Balzo. Sibilla was a daughter of Hugh de Baux, Great Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples.

Roberto Orsini was a son of Romano Orsini, Royal Vicar of Rome, and of Anastasia de Montfort. Anastasia was the oldest daughter and heiress of Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola and Margherita Aldobrandeschi.
Guy de Montfort was a son of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and Eleanor of Pembroke. Eleanor was the youngest child of King John of England and his Queen consort Isabella of Angoulême.

Jacquetta herself was an eighth-generation descendant of John and thus distantly related to the Kings of England descending from him.

On 22 April 1433 at 17 years of age, Jacquetta married John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford at Therouenne. The Duke was the third son of King Henry IV of England and Mary de Bohun. Jacquetta was a cousin of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the reigning Holy Roman Emperor, and King of Bohemia and Hungary. The marriage was meant to strengthen the ties of the Kingdom of England with the Holy Roman Empire and to increase English influence in the affairs of Continental Europe.The marriage was childless and the Duke died on 15 September 1435 at Rouen.

Does the Gordon earl mean that george Gordon, Lord Byron, the poet, was also a Simon descendant?

I checked on the British political scene by the time the statue was created and installed. Two of the prime ministers were Simon descendants and, if their future colleague Disraeli had that wonderful opinion of Simon (Sybil was published in 1845), imagine what was their opinion! Historians used to say that in the XIX century the liberals re-discovered Simon but Disraeli was a conservative politician.

Churchill was a descendant too! I am sure Simon was considered the prototype of the highest rank politician working for the entire nation, for all three classes. The Montfort descendants were: Liberal Lord John Russell (his first ministry: 30 June 1846–21 February 1852) prime minister by the time the statue was conceived and exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851; conservative George Hamilton–Gordon,the Earl of Aberdeen (19 December 1852–30 January 1855). In 1860, when the statue was cast and installed, prime minister was Lord Palmerstone, not a friend of Lord Russell. Although not in the same party, the Earl of Aberdeen and Lord Russel were friends and Russell was behind the coalition between the two parties!

I find the magnificent statue of Simon de Montfort, erected by subscription by Montfort admirers, is still being described as depicting Richard Couer de Lion!

Small wonder you should feel at war with the Lady Mortimer, if she is the same Lady Mortimer who received Simon’s severed head after the Battle of Evesham and “foully shent” it.

I don’t believe Guy was any particular friend of Edward’s, he was too young and would have been in France when Edward’s group of friends was forming. Henry of Alemaine, on the other hand was by all acounts a lovely fellow and a very close friend of Edward’s. Not surprising Edward would want to punish Guy (as he did not have young Simon to hand) for the murder at Viterbo.

Your argument of Guy’s survival and release or escape from prison has a lot to recommend it, especially against interested parties claiming he committed suicide — highly unlikely given the religious beliefs in which Guy was brought up. One can say he set those beliefs aside in murdering young Henry while he was at prayer in a church. Of that, I believe young Simon was the perpetrator and was insane — always marginally stable and now fully mad. Guy, I suppose, had joined him in the hopes of saving him, and when young Simon committed the murder, Guy found himself sharing the blame for it and was too honorable to accuse his crazed brother in an effort to excuse himself.

I don’t know if we’re fully in agreement, but we both hold Guy in high regard.

As for conflicting historical documentation, that is the pitfall of research. Misinformation, disinformation and confusion have always been with us. The historian’s job is to thread his or her way through the morass with a sense of what seems plausible as guide, choosing what verifications there are, but acknowledging the existence of material that can support a very different interpretation.

Bestens,
Katherine