Henry III vs. Simon de Montfort

Was Henry III overthrown by England's first constitutional revolution? How did Simon de Montfort's rebellion change the course of history? In 1258, a revolutionary movement stripped Henry III of his authority, plunging England into a bitter crisis and a brutal civil war. As Henry fought to suppress an uprising in France, his queen Eleanor of Provence emerged as one of the most formidable political figures of the age. David Carpenter returns to Gone Medieval to speak to Matt Lewis about the extraordinary final years of one of England's longest-reigning monarchs. More: How the Plantagenets Built England Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-the-plantagenets-built-england/id1564113746?i=1000652041116&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DcFjCRxO9Nvr89R1pJMHw King Edward I: Hammer of the Scots Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/king-edward-i-hammer-of-the-scots/id1564113746?i=1000723575073&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6XQhcy5RkBiN2KRl7bKHoG Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Watch History Hit's documentary on Simon de Montfort in the new Rebel series with Mike Loades. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week PLUS early access, ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:01Matt Lewis?

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• 2:21Matt Lewis?

  Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

• 3:00Matt Lewis?

  Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. What's better than an episode with Professor David Carpenter talking all about Henry III? Well, how about a second episode? Originally released in 2023 to coincide with the second part of David's magisterial biography of Henry III, this episode picks up where part one left off last week and leads us through some of the greatest challenges Henry faced in his 56-year reign, as well as considering his legacy, both for those living within memory of his death and for us now. I mean, if you visit Westminster Abbey today, it's largely the church that Henry III built. He has left a tangible impact, even if we can be guilty of overlooking him.

• 3:42Matt Lewis?

  David is such a joy to talk to and knows his subject like no one else. So enjoy this conclusion of the story of medieval England's longest-reigning monarch who languishes between the disasters of his father, King John, and the triumphs of his son, Edward I.

• 4:02Matt Lewis?

  So to start off with, could you just sum up for us what Henry's position was in 1258? I've sort of said, you know, he's around 50. He's been king for just over 40 years. What's the political situation he finds himself in at the outset of this book?

• 4:15Speaker 05

  Well, he didn't realise it, but it was extremely precarious. And the reason for that was that his open-handed gifts to his foreign relatives had set up tensions at court, which he lacked the political ability to control and also had divided him from the increasing Englishness of the political community. He'd also madly accepted papal offer of the throne of Sicily for his second son, and that completely alienated him from the church, who had to pay vast sums of money to the Pope for the privilege. And then also, there was widespread discontent with his rule in the localities. He'd failed to reform local government, and that meant that his own officials, the sheriffs, judges,

• 4:59Speaker 05

  but also the officials of great magnets, were becoming increasingly oppressive. So it's almost a perfect storm. On every side, there was discontent with his rule at court, in the church, and in the counties.

• 5:13Matt Lewis?

  And do you think Henry was in any way aware of that? How did he view his kingship, do you think?

• 5:17Speaker 05

  I don't think he was aware of it. And that takes us to one of his chief characteristics, which is again and again, people talked of his simplicity. And I think he was politically unaware. That was one reason why he failed to reform local government. He didn't realise what the political benefits would be. I think also his piety, which was one of his chief characteristics, played him false in the sense that he felt that his arms, his masses, and above all, his devotion to Edward the Confessor and building Westminster Abbey in the Confessor's honour, hoping the Confessor were the England's national saint. I think he thought that would see him right spiritually and indeed see him right in this world as well. So I think he thought, I've done enough.

• 6:02Speaker 05

  Unlike his brother-in-law, Louis IX of France, who had a deep sense of his own sinfulness, how he needed to reform the realm, really to save his soul and deeply concerned about the malpractices of his officials. Henry thought, oh dear, you know, the sheriffs and bailiffs and my officials, I know they're impressive, but what can I do about it? He didn't feel a great sense, I must do it to save myself, to save my soul.

• 6:28Matt Lewis?

  You alluded to it there, that there was a growing baronial discontent around 1258, 1259. Was Henry at this point deeply unpopular, either personally or in his rule as king?

• 6:41Speaker 05

  I think it was a mixed picture there. And the great chronicler of the age, who covered the Revolution of 58, 59, and wrote voluminously before that, Matthew Paris, monk of St Albans. On the one hand, he gives Henry his due. He writes of the great peace that Henry had established. He appreciated that this was a long years of peace. He also very much admired the king's piety and the way he was rebuilding Westminster Abbey, the way he was going to translate the body of the Confessor to a new shrine. And yet, on the other hand, Matthew Paris again and again holds his head in his hands with despair at the king's profligate patronage to foreigners,

• 7:25Speaker 05

  at the king's simplicity in plunging into the Sicilian affair. And also, again, you know, the oppression of the king's sheriffs and judges. So that I think Matthew Paris would have said, yes, peace, but peace with injustice. To be fair to Henry, his position was far more difficult than that of the 12th century kings. In the minority, Magna Carta had been accepted, which stocked up a lot of traditional sources of revenue. At the same time, the great landed estate, which had come to kings of England with the conquests, had really been given away in the course of the 12th century. So Henry's the first king of England who essentially needs general taxation in order to be wealthy in peace, successful in war.

• 8:08Speaker 05

  But of course, Magna Carta and general custom was that such taxation needed the consent of the kingdom, which by Henry's time means the consent of Parliament. So Henry's the first king of England who faces parliamentary power and has to deal with that great lever of parliamentary power down the ages. That's to say, the ability to refuse taxation. And Henry comes again and again to Parliament in the 1240s, 1250s, and he's always refused taxation. And of course, that's why he had to get money in other ways, through his sheriffs and judges. Henry would have said fairly that his financial exactions were nowhere near as heavy as his father's. And equally, of course, he had none of his father's impiety, cruelty, anything like that.

• 8:53Speaker 05

  But of course, that didn't alter the fact that those sorts of perspectives are very difficult to maintain. The king's financial exactions seemed heavy enough, even though they were nowhere near as bad as those of his father.

• 9:06Matt Lewis?

  And so how far do the barons go in 1258? We're still living almost in the shadow of Magna Carta here, where there was a big baronial uprising and an invasion from France even. How far did the barons go in 1258 in opposing Henry?

• 9:19Speaker 05

  The revolution of 1258 was absolutely extraordinary and was far more radical and revolutionary than I think any other revolution in English history until the time of Cromwell. So on the one hand, a baronial council simply stripped the king of power and took over the government of the country. And that's far more radical than Magna Carta, which left King John in charge of central government, said he can't do this, can't do that. But King John could still appoint his ministers, could still appoint policies he wanted. All that stops in 1258, when a baronial council simply takes over the government of the country and reduces the king to a cypher. But what was equally remarkable, on the other hand, was this extraordinary reform of local government, which I think was unprecedented really in English history, because it was

• 10:03Speaker 05

  not merely a reform of the king's local government, his own sheriffs, judges, bailiffs, which was much the same as in Magna Carta. But it is also a reform of the local government of the barons, so that barony officials and the conduct of the barons themselves are just as much subject to reform as are those of the king. Absolutely unique. I mean, there's no parallel of that in the 14th, 15th century or later on. How do you explain that? It was partly from pressure from below. You know, the barons had taken over government, they were in a dangerous situation, they'd coerced the king, however much they pretended otherwise, they needed support. But it also takes us, I think, to one of the really unique features of this period, which is its religiosity.

• 10:47Speaker 05

  I think, again, unparalleled until the time of Cromwell, in that the baronial leaders, and particularly Simon de Montfort, who I think is central to what happens in 1258, 59, they do have that vision of Louis the Ninth in France, that they're responsible for whatever the officials do in their name, and if they allow them to transgress, then that's going to affect their own salvation. And that was being said to them by great churchmen. This is the age of the friars, this is the age of the great scholar Bishop Robert Gross Test, Bishop of Lincoln. That's what all these people were saying to these baronial leaders. If you sin by allowing your officials to act unjustly, or you do sin by allowing that, you know, it'll affect your salvation.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  And so that's, in a way, what drove forward this great reform of the realm. And also its unique feature, that the barons were as much being reformed as was the king.

• 11:40Matt Lewis?

  I think that was a striking thing about it. You often see these moments as either being reform pushed down by the crown and the government, or reform pushed up mainly by the barons, whereas this seems much more kind of root and branch across the board, everybody is being affected, rather than just the people driving it.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  It's an extraordinary shaking of English politics and society, in which the idea that the provisions of Oxford, which is what the reforms were called, they come to be seen as a sort of holy cause across society. And that's how Montfort seized control of the agenda in an extraordinary way, and they people believe this. And that this was reform, which goes from top to bottom of society, king, baron, knight, and peasants too, benefit from some of these reforms.

• 12:26Matt Lewis?

  And I guess, almost parallel to this, in 1259, at almost the same time, we get the Treaty of Paris being signed. Can you just tell us a little bit about what the Treaty of Paris was, please?

• 12:35Speaker 05

  Well, this was a remarkable settlement in which King Henry III finally resigned his claims to the lost territories in France, which Kings of England had since 1066, Normandy, and from 1154, Anjou and Poitou. So Henry went to Paris in 1259, and he resigned his claims. And at the same time, he accepted that what remained of his continental possessions, so essentially Gascony, he would hold that from the King of France as a thief held from the King of France, for which he would do homage. So that was the settlement, which was involved in the Treaty of Paris. In some ways, it was a great triumph for the King of France, King Louis the Ninth,

• 13:20Speaker 05

  because it consolidated all the conquests of his predecessors, particularly his grandfather, Philip Augustus, and got the King of England finally to admit he was not going to recover them.

• 13:32Matt Lewis?

  And I guess history has a tendency to view those kinds of successions as big failures, giving up huge amounts of territory. Did contemporaries view it that way too?

• 13:40Speaker 05

  They did, in that the press in England, if you can read what the chronicles said about it, was very critical. They were very aware about the diminution of the power of the King of England, the way these territories had been resigned. And unfortunately, you couldn't get away from what had happened, because Henry had to alter his seal. Because on the seal made for him in 1218, he had scribed himself as King of England, Lord of Ireland, but also Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou. So he now had to alter the seal and drop the title Duke of Normandy, drop the title Count of Anjou. So it was absolutely clear what had happened.

• 14:25Speaker 05

  And he also altered the seal, and he no longer held a sword on it. And people thought that meant I'd given up the ducal sword of Normandy. And so, you know, it was very visual. Although I think Henry actually, again, this shows how sometimes soft power, visual effects don't work in a misinterpreted, fascinating way. Henry replaced the sword with a sceptre with a dove on the top of it. And I think the reason he did that was not because he'd lost Normandy, but because this was the emblem of Edward the Confessor. And so Henry is saying, again, you know, I'm going to be a king like Edward the Confessor. And of course, the dove is a symbol of peace. And Henry's great claim was that I have brought peace to England for so many years. So it wasn't popular.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  On the other hand, I think we're entitled to perhaps look at it rather differently. I mean, I think, one, the chances of actually recovering the lost empire under a king like Henry III, you know, if he'd been a Richard the Lionheart, or Edward III, or Henry the Fifth, perhaps different, chances of recovering it were virtually nil. And secondly, it was a terrific success. It brought 34, 35 years of peace to England and France, from which, you know, both countries benefited hugely. Far better that than the constant warfare, which would have been necessary to try and recover the lost continental possessions. So I think it fits in to Henry's own claim.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  To be absolutely accurate, one can't say Henry started the negotiations for the peace of Paris with the idea that this would bring peace, or not exactly, because what he wanted to do was to clear the decks for a war, which might help him win Sicily. But I think in the end, and of course, he was so close to his brother-in-law, the King of France, Louis the Ninth, who did have that vision of peace between peoples. I think in the end, Henry came to share it. And if you'd asked him in 1259, 1260, you know, what are the benefits of this? He would have said, I have established peace between England and France, peace between peoples, but also peace between monarchies, who are so closely connected, because of

• 16:34Speaker 05

  course, Henry and Louis the Ninth had married sisters.

• 16:37Matt Lewis?

  It's such an odd thing that those moments that we tend to criticise from history are what we would like to see in the world today. You know, we're living in a world where there's war in Eastern Europe at the moment. We would quite like it if the two heads of state got together and made a peace that they could both accept. And we don't want the war to be perpetuated.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  This is such a unique period in history, in which the King of England, Henry III, the King of France, Louis the Ninth, they'd married sisters. And they were so close, they became almost brothers in Christ. And Louis the Ninth says, you know, I want there to be peace between our families and between our countries because of this close relationship. And it's a very good example of how, in international affairs, sometimes those kinds of personal relationships can be so important. If it hadn't have been for that personal relationship, the peace of Paris would not have been possible. And if it hadn't been a personal relationship, it wouldn't have then created peace for 34 years.

• 17:32Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, it's such a unique achievement at a time when we're generally at war with France. One figure who we have already mentioned, and who dominates this period of Henry's life, and to some extent overshadows Henry in the view of this history, I think, is Simon de Montfort. How does Simon go from being Henry's friend and his brother-in-law, to being the leader of opposition against Henry?

• 17:55Speaker 05

  Well, that's an extraordinary question. And of course, he was not even an Englishman. He was a younger son of the great French nobleman Simon de Montfort, who'd led the Albigencian Crusade. So how ironic then, that he should lead a political movement, of which one of the main strands was England for the English. Simon's enemies would say, this is a man driven by material grievances and a lust for power. And his material grievances were very considerable, because although Henry might have said, look, I accepted you as Earl of Leicester, I didn't have to do that, you were born in France, you're the son of a French nobleman, it's an entirely matter of grace, I then married you to my sister, what more can you expect?

• 18:39Speaker 05

  Montfort would have said, yeah, you married me to your sister, but you've never given me the landed endowment that ought to have gone with it. And she has never received her full dower as the widow of her first husband, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. Those material grievances were central to Montfort's career in the 40s and 50s. He also was felt badly let down, I think wrongly, by Henry sacking him as his lieutenant in Gascany. And of course, there was also such a huge difference in terms of personality between the two of them. I mean, Montfort had a heart

• 19:17Speaker 05

  of steel. He was a hard-driving, hugely intelligent man with a silver tongue, but also extremely a serbic tongue. He had contempt for the king, a contempt for the king's simplicity, a contempt for the king's changeability. And of course, in one famous occasion, which Henry never forgot, Montfort said to him, "You're so stupid, you ought to be set apart, shut away, like the Carolingian king Charles the Simple. In French, it sounds even worse, like the king Charles la Sotte." Henry never forgot him saying that. So those drove Montfort forward. But I think it's completely wrong to reduce his career to that. Why does he

• 20:02Speaker 05

  become the central figure in the revolution in 1258? Why, after that, does he in the end seize power, govern the country in the king's name? Because 1258 leads into a struggle for power. Montfort, in the end, doesn't accept the king's recovery of power in 1261, comes back in 1263, simply to put himself at the head of a new movement to reassert the provisions of Oxford. That leads into the civil war, Montfort's great victory at Leuys, and the way he rules England between the Battle of Leuys in 64, his death at Yvesham in 65. So it's absolutely not just material grievances driving him forward, it is religiosity. Because I think he, more than anybody else, was influenced by the

• 20:45Speaker 05

  friars, by the whole circle of bishops around, now dead, Robert Grosstest, Bishop of Lincoln. And he's searching for a righteous cause, a religious cause, like his father, hugely influenced by his father, for which he might fight and perhaps die. And I think he, more than anybody else, believes that reform of the realm is necessary to purge our souls and to establish a Christian community in England. And again, going back to reform of local government, we too have sinned. We too must purge and reform the activities of our local officials. Others believed that too, but I think he was central in believing it. And that's why he's the only great nobleman who refused to accept the king's recovery

• 21:29Speaker 05

  of power in 1261. He said, "I prefer to die without land than abandon the truth and be perjured." And that's partly because a great oath had been sworn to support reforms. Then he comes back in 1263, only comes back when he can put himself at the head of a movement, once again designed to reassert the provisions of Oxford. The parallels with Cromwell, I think, are very fair, in that these are both men driven by a sense of religious purpose, which make them all the more dangerous, all the more compelling, but also all the more, to some people, offensive. I think he's one of the greatest people to dignify, but also, I think, in a way, defiled English history.

• 22:13Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I always got the impression of Simon, that he was very much looking for a crusade. So his dad and his brothers were heavily involved in the Albigensian Crusade. And he's almost looking to find that for himself, find his own fight. So he turns Boronial Reform into this almost crusade against bad governance, to justify his own position in the de Montfort family.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  And that's why, before, when he thought there was going to be a battle outside London in December 1263, Leuys in 1264, he gets his side of Don crosses in the manner of crusaders. I think it's important to realise that what was brilliant too, I think, two other characteristics of Montfort, was that he was firstly, a brilliant politician. And he does see the importance of issues and how to exploit them. And one of them was England for the English. So that when he comes back in 1263, he reaffirms the provisions of Oxford, but he also joins something new to them, which was a statute against aliens.

• 23:18Speaker 05

  And so it was a statute which expelled all foreigners from the country, save those accepted by Parliament, essentially. And also said, "Office in future can never be held by a foreigner." Ironic, in some ways, he was a foreigner himself. But that was gigantically popular. He saw this is a hugely resonant issue, and he seizes it and sees the agenda. So if you ask people in England, 1264, 1265, "What does Montfort stand for?", I think they would have said, "Reform the realm." But they would also have said, "England for the English." You know, he'd made this central to his movement. Politically, he'd managed to seize control of the agenda by persuading so many people, this was a righteous cause. And again and again, the provisions of Oxford are cited. Why are we fighting

• 24:03Speaker 05

  for the provisions of Oxford? We're doing it for the community of the realm, for the benefit of all of us, and for zeal for justice, and because it is a crusading cause. And to be able to persuade people of this was a gigantic political achievement in itself. But sorry, it doesn't stop there, because of course, also, he was a great general. And again, the parallel with Cromwell is extraordinary. He would never have got to the top if he hadn't known how to fight war. I think the time in Gascany was very important there, because in Gascany, he'd learnt about war as ravage. In other words, war was burning the property of your opponents. In Gascany, it's vineyards. In England, it's fields, barns,

• 24:43Speaker 05

  and so on. And when he comes back in 1263, how does he defeat the king? It's simply by ravaging the estates of the king's supporters. And then, of course, the great victory at Leuys, amazing courage, which you march out of London on May the 6th, 1264, with no other aim but to bring the king's army to battle. Battles are normally avoided, because they can be so devastating. And yet, Montfort marches out of London to bring the king's army to battle, and then marches on to the top of the downs above Leuys during the night, so that he can crash down next day into Henry's forces. So, you know, a great general, too. All these things, a most remarkable person.

• 25:40Matt Lewis?

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• 27:24Speaker 03

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• 28:46Matt Lewis?

  Even at Louis, there's a little bit of trickery as well, isn't there? Because he's injured, so he makes it look like he's in an armoured carriage at the side of his army, when actually he's not there. And that kind of lures part of the royal army to attack him there.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  This is a good example of Montfort's propaganda creating the agenda. It's not actually clear really whether that was intent beforehand. It's certainly the coach in which Montfort had been, because he'd broken his leg before the battle, was attacked by the royalists, by Lord Edward, thinking that Montfort was there. Whether really that was the intention beforehand, I'm not sure. But the point is that people thought it was, and that shows how these wonderful myths gather about Montfort. I think the revolution of 1258 could very reasonably be justified by Henry's misrule, however personally good and pious he was.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  And in so far as Montfort played a central part in that, you could say that absolutely justified. I'm much more sceptical and critical of his return to England in 1263 to reimpose the provisions, because that led to terrible destruction. Part of Montfort's own religiosity was hostility to the Jews. There was terrible massacre of the Jews in London. But, you know, between 1263 and 1267, we have a period of destruction, civil war, chaos. And I don't think it was in any way justified. You know, if Henry had been allowed to continue in peace after his recovery of power in 1261, I think his rule might have been way worse, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  He was already accepting some of the great legislative reforms of 1258, 59. So I would have been happily marched into the King's Hall with the barons in 1258 to start off the revolution. I would have been on the king's side in 1263.

• 30:36Matt Lewis?

  I'm conscious that we're in danger of falling into the trap of history of allowing Simon de Montfort to overshadow Henry here. But just before we leave him, we get this period then, after the Battle of Louis, where Simon de Montfort is in charge for roughly a year. And during that short period, he develops this reputation as being the father of parliamentary democracy. Do you think he was? Would he have recognised that at all?

• 30:57Speaker 05

  I wouldn't quite put it like that, but I think as far as we can see, he was the first ruler of England, which is what it was, to summon both knights and burgesses to a parliament. And that was the Parliament of January 1265. His June 64 Parliament, he'd summoned knights from the counties. In January 65 Parliament, he adds burgesses from the towns. Far as we can see, that was the first time that had happened. You could say the January 65 Parliament is the first time, as far as we can see, anything like a House of Commons had actually met. Why did he do it? It was purely political. Again, goes back to his political antenna. He sensed he had wide support there.

• 31:40Speaker 05

  His baronial support was declining, so he reaches out to a wider political community. There might have been some ideology there too, because his episcopal supporters very strongly believe in consent in great measures like taxation, but also reform the realm needs wide consent. So there might be an ideological reason there. So I don't think there's anything untrue in saying that Montfort is central in a way in the history of Parliament. I think probably it would have happened anyway. That's the sense in which the great barons alone can answer for the political community in granting taxation, which had been there in Magna Carta. Magna Carta envisages just the barons.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  Probably at the early parliaments of Henry III, just the tenants in chief, baronial tenants in chief essentially, were able to consent to taxation. The sense that they can do that was probably withering with changes in society. But I think Montfort's Parliament probably accelerated the process, so that the late parliaments of Henry III and the parliaments of Edward I, whenever taxation is an issue, knights and burgesses are summoned. And I don't think that would have happened as quickly if it hadn't have been for Montfort and the more general conditions of reform and rebellion.

• 32:57Matt Lewis?

  Fascinating. And I'm in danger again of allowing Henry to be overshadowed here, because I'm going to talk a little bit about his oldest son next. But how important was the man who was known as Lord Edward then, who would go on to become King Edward I? How important was he and his relationship with his father in restoring Henry's rule?

• 33:14Speaker 05

  It was vital. And I thought one of the most extraordinary things actually in writing the book and tracing the narrative of events quite closely, which in some ways had been ever done before, was the moment Edward takes over the direction of royal policy. And it was in 1263, after Montfort's return. And it's quite extraordinary, because Edward clearly realises he has to defeat Montfort by battle. He calls the shots, and they really are shots. And the contrast between royal policy from October, November, December, 1263 onwards, and the contrast when Henry was in charge during his recovery of power in 1261 and previously,

• 33:59Speaker 05

  is quite remarkable. It's like some sort of great electric shock had gone through the royal party and sparked them into action. Edward decides towards the end of 1263 onwards to make war. And he does so very effectively in the early part of 64. In the end, of course, he's defeated the Battle of Louis. But then, of course, he dramatically escapes in 1265 from Hereford, tiring out all the horses outside the town, so there's only one he can gallop away on. How Montfort allowed him to do that, and he was a terrible mistake, and then he wins the Battle of Evesham.

• 34:34Matt Lewis?

  I do think it's one of the best stories of medieval history, though, that his escape is one of the greatest tales.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  It is, yeah. I mean, Montfort, why he allowed that? Because Montfort, remember, in 1265, holds Edward in captivity after his capture at the Battle of Louis. And so they're in Hereford, things are already going wrong for Montfort. And he allowed Edward to go outside the walls of Hereford with a series of horses. And so Edward, no doubt surrounded by guards, gallops away on each of them and turn, tests them out and said, oh, I don't know, let's try the next one, until they're all exhausted save one. And then he gallops away on it. And of course, that's the beginning of Montfort's downfall. Equally, of course, the victory of Evesham didn't end the war. It went on for another two years. And Edward again was central to winning the final war too.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  So, you know, Henry survives partly because of himself, his party, but I don't think he would have survived without Edward. Having said that, Edward was also a troublemaker. And I blame him more than Henry for the disastrous policy after Evesham. Because after the end of Magna Carta civil war in 1217, all the rebels got back their lands. Whereas after Evesham, all the rebels are disinherited. In a way, there was curious sort of failure there, because they were disinherited, but many of them were left at large. So you have large numbers of people desperate, living off the land, creating a new war. I blame Edward for that policy.

• 36:05Speaker 05

  I think he's the one person with the power and prestige after Evesham to have stood up and said, no, this is not going to work. It will create fresh strife. But I think they were so buoyed up by what seemed an utterly decisive victory. And also, there was by this time so much bitterness, and the king had been humiliated, Edward had been humiliated, that it was difficult to do, but the policy was disastrous. And I blame Edward for it as the one person who could have stopped it. I think actually he learnt a lot from the period, and some of the wisdom he showed later in his career may be thanks to the buffets he'd sustained.

• 36:50Matt Lewis?

  I was only going to ask whether you feel, in Edward's case, that his personality drove events or events shaped his personality? Because we know the kind of king he would become as Edward I. He was almost the opposite of his father. Was that somehow shaped by his experiences during those years in the 1260s?

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Yes or no? No, in that he was the opposite of Henry as a reckless pacifist. I mean, Henry had wanted the rewards of successful war, but had no idea how to fight war, either strategically or personally. And there's no evidence he ever attended tournaments. Edward, from the word go, was quite different from his father. Physically, he was very tall and strong. He loved tournaments. He loved the business of war. And you know, why there's that difference between them? Must be something innate. I'll always remember at school, there was a boy called Jones, who wasn't terribly good at football, but we always liked him in the side, because there was some devil in his play.

• 37:48Speaker 05

  There was no devil in Henry's play, and there was a great deal of devil in Edward's. And I think that was something innate. On the other hand, yes, I think he learnt profoundly from the period of reform and rebellion. Because all of a sudden, in 1258, it's not just the king who's stripped of power, the Baronial Council tried to strip Edward of power. He suddenly finds himself cabbied and confined, and he has to work out how to recover his own authority, recover control of his lands. And on the one hand, he has to think, who are the great nobles who I can win over to my side? But also, from the word go, he appreciates the importance of local society, the importance of knights, townsman, and so on. And you know, there's a key moment in 1259, when the group of knights at the Westminster

• 38:33Speaker 05

  Parliament complained that the barons have so far not done enough for the benefit of the whole community. And Edward says, I will support you. You know, it's really a striking indication of his political feel. And that continues in the 1263, 4, 5, 7 period. So the huge reform of the realm that Edward introduced when he gets back to England, start of his reign in 1274, that's very much influenced, as historian John Madicott showed in detail, by what had happened between 1258 and 1259, by the great reforms. So I think he had learnt a very great deal.

• 39:13Speaker 05

  In that sense, he was a very wise king, which didn't mean he didn't make terrible miscalculations, obviously, over Scotland. If you compare Henry and Edward, well, I mean, Edward is a famous king, Henry is not. But is that entirely fair? Think about what's best for Britain. Henry was a far better king, because there is wonderful relations with Scotland throughout the whole of Henry's reign, no wars, nothing like that. Henry's campaigns in Wales were very much last resorts and didn't last very long. In the end, Henry accepted Cluelien as Prince of Wales. Henry never intervened in Ireland, he made peace with France. So who was the better king?

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• 41:32Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, it's one of the big questions about Henry, why he's not considered a better king than history's remembered him as. So Henry's wife, the Queen, Eleanor, Edward's mother, to some extent, she might be seen as part of the problem because it's her relatives coming over that have caused part of the problem and the backlash against foreigners that has seen Simon do the England for the English bit. What part does she play in all of this period of Henry's life?

• 41:54Speaker 05

  It is a fascinating part of the period because it sees a revival of queenship. No queen of England had actually played an important part in English government, really as since Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 1160s. I mean, she played a brief part as Henry II's widow in the 1190s. But, you know, John's wife had played no part, despite being a very feisty woman, had just played no part in politics, government, society. Now, all this changes under Henry III and 1236, he marries Eleanor of Provence. She's only 12 at the time, very much Henry's to mold and shape. But in the end, she turns out to be a much stronger personality than Henry.

• 42:38Speaker 05

  And she was, first of all, a great faction fighter. I mean, what she does is to persuade Henry to establish in England her uncles, who all came from Savoy. Then they quarrel with the other group of foreigners, Henry's half-brothers from Poitou. So two groups of foreigners established in England. And Eleanor does all she can to promote the interests of the Savoyards and to do down the Lucineans. And so remarkably, she actually supported the revolution of 1258 because he got rid of the Lucineans. And then she changes her mind because Simon de Montfort has quarrelled with Peter of Savoy, her uncle, and then is central to Henry's recovery power in 1261. I mean, she was one of the main plotters of this.

• 43:23Speaker 05

  And then the high point of it all came when Henry's captured at the Battle of Lewis and Eleanor now is abroad in Flanders and raises an army in Flanders to invade England. In the end, it never invaded because she ran out of money. But what's interesting actually is the reaction of chroniclers to this. Because on the one hand, the chronicler says, thank God the invasion didn't take place. The English have been saved, a foreign invasion. And yet, on the other hand, he says, and yet, we should always remember this to the praise of the Queen, that like a sort of Amazonian woman, she sweated to raise this army.

• 44:02Speaker 05

  You know how impressive this was, which shows how there is scope for queens to play an important part in politics. But clearly, she was a troublemaker. And if it hadn't been for promoting the interests of the Savoyards, Henry's court might have been a much more tranquil place. It's interesting, in the end, she wasn't buried beside Henry in Westminster Abbey, although she'd earlier said she wanted to be. I think she must have changed her mind about that and wanted to be buried where she retired to, the nunnery of Amesbury in Wiltshire. But what's interesting is that I think Edward, her son, made no effort to try and persuade her to change her mind.

• 44:42Speaker 05

  And Edward didn't want to have this type of model of queenship commemorated in the Abbey. He far preferred to have the complacent model given by his own wife, Eleanor of Castile. So there was a lot of tension between Edward and his mother. And that too played a part actually in the king's loss of power in 1263. So a very remarkable queen.

• 45:06Matt Lewis?

  Henry's rule, his reign, is so dominated by such huge characters that he almost shrinks into the background of it because of his own nature and his own character. But just to get back to Henry, so he reigns for five more years once the dust settles. How would you characterize that period? Do you think Henry is changed at all by the experiences of the Second Baron's War? Or does he feel a bit vindicated by the fact that ultimately he won?

• 45:31Speaker 05

  I wish he'd learnt wisdom, but actually, if you look at it in detail, which I've done for that period, you can see him making some of the same mistakes all over again. There's the same profligacy, extraordinary number of gifts are being given from the royal forests. Almost one a day in some years after 1267, there's 200 gifts during the whole course of the year of either deer or wood from royal forests. When Edward comes back to England, they go down from a couple of hundred to 20. So he still tries to be as profligate. He can sometimes act as unwise. There's an extraordinary letter in which he apologises to his brother, Richard of Cornwall, King of the Romans, for not taking his advice and says,

• 46:16Speaker 05

  I realise I didn't do very well in ignoring you on that occasion. But the damage he can do is so much less because essentially, nothing happens without Edward's consent. And after Edward leaves on his crusade, without the consent of Edward's counsel. So it's a far more tranquil period. And of course, Henry's much older. He'd never been a very energetic king. He loved the comfortable life, living in his palaces and palace castles, decorating them, wainscoting them, painting them, stained glassing them, tiling them, making salubrious lavatories and all the rest of it. That's much more the case now from 1267 onwards, when he's not in the best of health, spends large amounts of time at Westminster.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  And of course, it's in this period that we have the consummation of Henry's greatest achievement. Because in 1269, Westminster Abbey is finally consecrated. The Confessor is translated to his sumptuous new shrine. I mean, Henry would have thought that was an apotheosis. That was the achievement of 25 years of work. And he's done it for the dynasty and for himself, but he's also done it for the kingdom. So Henry would have thought, in the end, that justifies me and justifies my reign.

• 47:34Matt Lewis?

  And I guess to conclude, Henry is so often overlooked. And hopefully, over the previous episode that we did and over this one, we've tried to do a bit more justice to Henry and to bring him a little bit more into the light. And he reigns for 56 years, which is the longest reign of a medieval monarch. It's not beaten until, I think, we get George III in the Georgian period. Yet he's so little known. I've kind of argued before that I think in that longer reign, some form of rebellion is almost inevitable in the grand scheme of rolling rebellions across particularly the medieval period. It was almost inevitable that he'd get wrapped up in one. But how do you think we should view Henry now? I mean, we've talked about the widespread peace, but how sometimes that's often viewed as a failure.

• 48:16Matt Lewis?

  We've talked about his building, which is still here 700 years, 800 years later. How do you think we should view Henry III?

• 48:23Speaker 05

  I think, first of all, we need to realise, of course, this is a pivotal reign. In purely political constitutional terms, Magna Carta implanted into political life, development of Parliament, and then this extraordinary arrival of the friars, pastoral bishops, and that all feeding into the Great Revolution and the regiosity of the period 5865. So the context there, and also the context of the peace with France. And you're right, of course, this is a long period of internal and domestic peace. I think you could argue that from the point of view of Britain and France, his reign was far happier one than that of his son, certainly. I do think we can actually get closer to Henry's fascinating personality than any other medieval king.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  And the reason for that are the extraordinary chancery roles. So the chancery is the office travelling with the king, which writes and seals all its letters. Henry's reign, they're recording all the output on these roles, which are all preserved now in the National Archives at Kew. Now, there are thousands of letters every year. A lot of them are absolutely bon standard, but many others are deeply personal to the king and throw tremendous light on his profligacy, his piety, his generosity, the way he's a connoisseur of art and architecture. And so I think we can get tremendously close to Henry, this warm-hearted, generous,

• 49:50Speaker 05

  angry sometimes, but easily appeased, easygoing, lazy. I suppose in the end, you know, there are different views as to what makes a good king. And Matthew Paris, at the start of his life of Edward the Confessor, poses two models of kingship, both equally good. On the one hand, there are the kings who are warlike and very brave. And obviously, Arthur, Edmund Ironside, he mentions. On the other hand, there are kings who are more peaceable, wise, moderate, Edward the Confessor. Now, Henry doesn't quite fit into the latter category, unfortunately, because people constantly said he was simplex and not wise, which I think meant naive more than anything else.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  But nonetheless, that in some ways he succeeded, I think, was very much due to the huge respect for him as a rex christianissimus. But also, he had created a long, long period of foreign and domestic peace.

• 50:50Matt Lewis?

  It's been absolutely fascinating. I genuinely could sit here and talk to you for hours about Henry III. So thank you so much for joining us to talk about this second part of his life. It's been an absolute pleasure.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 51:02Matt Lewis?

  So what do you make of Henry III? Is he overlooked? Or does he deserve the degree of anonymity he's been consigning to? Was he what England needed to overcome the problems of his father's reign and set the stage for his son's aggressive outward focus? Or is he an incompetent who lasts so long because everyone then, much like now, kind of forgets that Henry III sat on the throne at all? Just a reminder too, that Mike Livingston has made a fantastic documentary for History Hit, all about Simon's Rebellion, as part of the series that also includes William Wallace and Owen Glyndrew. So you can check that out right now if you're a History Hit subscriber. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back

• 51:45Matt Lewis?

  to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.

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  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.