Second war of the barons
King Henry III (left) fighting the barons. Miniature from the 14th century
| date | April 1264 to July 1267 |
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| place | |
| output | Victory of the king |
| Parties to the conflict | |
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Nobility opposition under Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester |
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The Second War of the Barons ( English Second Barons' War ) was a military conflict between the English King Henry III. and a noble opposition led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester . After the First War of the Barons from 1215 to 1217, it was the second major controversy over the power of the King of England against his barons. After the first fighting had already started in the summer of 1262, an open civil war began in April 1264, which ended in August 1265 with a clear victory for the supporters of the king. However, the further battles dragged on until 1267. Ultimately, the king had to make concessions to the barons.
causes
Against the policy of King Heinrich III. In 1257 a firm opposition to the aristocracy was formed, the aim of which was to reform royal rule. The barons no longer agreed with the closed and arbitrary government of the king. They accused the king of no longer seeking their advice; instead, the king would only trust his own advisers and officials, some of whom came from Poitou , France and were related to him. These friends and relatives had become very influential at the royal court from 1247 and the barons accused the king of preferring them over them. At the same time, he would abuse his rights as a feudal lord , especially in the case of guardianship of underage heirs, in granting permission to marry and in other feudal duties. Above all, the king's policy was no longer successful and the barons felt badly governed. They criticized his unsuccessful fight against the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd , who in a few years had shaken off English supremacy and fought for supremacy in Wales and now threatened their possessions in the Welsh Marches . Ultimately, the king, influenced by Pope Alexander IV , planned the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily for his son Edmund . He invested large sums of money in the implementation of this plan, without the plan appearing promising. Ultimately, the project failed completely. The Pope's claims could not be satisfied and the English barons refused both military and financial support for this adventure, to which they were entitled under the Magna Carta . In contrast to the aristocratic opposition of 1215, which only wanted to limit the king's power by recognizing the Magna Carta, the barons now demanded reform and, above all, participation in the king's rule.
The road to civil war
Beginning of the aristocratic opposition
Against the background of crop failures and famine and defeats in the war in Wales , especially after the catastrophic defeat in the Battle of Cymerau by the Welsh princes, as well as because of his debts to the Pope, because of which his relations with the English Church deteriorated, the King for early April 1258 a Parliament to Westminster . He wanted to prepare a new campaign to Wales, and he was planning an expedition to Sicily. The Sicilian adventure in particular met with great protest. His hope for financial support was not fulfilled. The magnates were divided into groups, a development that emerged after his half-brother, Bishop Aymer de Lusignan , attacked John Fitz Geoffrey on April 1 , a deserving royal henchman and confidante of the Queen in Surrey . When FitzGeoffrey asked for justice, the king refused. Presumably with Queen Eleanor's consent , a small group of influential magnates met on April 12th. They included Peter of Savoy , an uncle of the king, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester , Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk , his brother Hugh Bigod , as well as John Fitz and Geoffrey Peter de Montfort , who were friends with Montfort. They swore mutual support against the Lusignans, the king's half-brothers, and because of the king's unpopularity, the conspirators quickly succeeded in winning almost the entire nobility on their side. When the king again called for support for the war in Wales on April 28, they stormed armed into Westminster Hall under the leadership of the Earl of Norfolk and gave the king an ultimatum. They demanded a reform of the rule, a reorganization of the royal finances and the respect of their ancestral rights. The barons proposed that the king form a committee of 24 members to advise the king until Christmas to reform the kingdom and settle the king's debts. The members were to be appointed half by the barons and half by the king. Faced with opposition at his own court and under pressure because of the war in Wales, the king gave in quickly and swore on May 2nd to accept the committee. In return, the barons made a vague promise to continue the war in Wales. This compromise was doomed to failure. When asked to fill half of the committee, the king chose mainly his half-brothers, the Lusignans and their followers, but he was so isolated that he could not get twelve members together. Another parliament was agreed for June, but in the meantime Henry's objections to peace with France have been overruled. On May 8th, ambassadors, including Simon de Montfort, Peter of Savoy and also the Lusigans, began negotiations with the French King Louis IX. to make peace with France and end the dispute over English possessions in France. They were ready to give up Normandy once and for all and quickly drafted the articles for a peace treaty.
Enactment of the Provisions of Oxford
On June 11th, Parliament met again in Oxford, with a large army for a campaign by land and sea to Wales. The barons had to work hard on the king to negotiate with Lord Llywelyn, who had also sent envoys. Against the background of a dispute over favors, the group of barons in the committee decided that the Lusignans had to leave the country. They consulted parliament, promised a general reform of rule and made the Lusignans scapegoats for the failures of royal rule. A collection of complaints from the barons was recorded, and in the Dominican Church at Oxford the barons took a joint oath against mortal enemies of the empire. The committee decided on the Provisions of Oxford , according to which a 15-person council of state was set up to advise the king. The commanders of the royal castles, but also the Lord Chancellor , the Justiciar and the Lord High Treasurer should be responsible to the Council of State. There should be three meetings each year called Great Concils, or parliaments , in which the members of the Council of State should attend with twelve other representatives of the barons. These parliaments should take place at Candlemas on February 2nd, June 1st and at Michaelmas on September 29th.
The king's reign fell apart when the magnates re-occupied the long vacant office of Justiciars with Hugh Bigod to ensure justice for all classes, while a truce was signed with Lord Llywelyn. On June 22nd, the king had to hand over his most important castles to the magnates' castellans, and on the same day four electors elected the fifteen members of the new royal council that took power. This council included Archbishop Boniface of Savoy of Canterbury, John de Plessis, 7th Earl of Warwick and the royal adviser John Mansel , but also the Earls of Norfolk, Hereford, Peter of Savoy, Peter de Montfort, John Fitz Geoffrey, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore , James Audley and Bishop Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester, but especially Richard de Clare and Simon de Montfort.
First rule of the barons
With these provisions the aristocratic opposition had fought for power in England. Around June 28th, the Lusignans and the heir to the throne, Lord Eduard, fled in a daring, defiant gesture from Oxford to Amyer de Valences castle in Winchester. The magnates pursued them and their resistance collapsed. On July 10th, Lord Edward swore to abide by the Provisions of Oxford, and four days later the Lusignans left the empire, completing the king's defeat.
For the next 18 months, England was effectively ruled by a fifteen-member royal council, while royal power remained severely restricted. It was further restricted by asking each county on August 4, 1258, to collect complaints against royal and manorial officials through envoys and to report them to Parliament in October. In addition, the new Justiciar Hugh Bigod toured several counties, listened to complaints and quickly became very popular. In this way, the royal council accommodated the knighthood, the yeoman and the bourgeoisie, who also carried out reforms in the area of administration and justice at the local level. The Provisions of Westminster , issued in the fall of 1259, accommodated the complaints and attempted to reform the local administration and judiciary. This enabled Hugh Bigod and his successor Hugh le Despenser to continue to win the trust and support of knights, passed pawns and citizens. The Provisions of Westminster were intended to limit the judicial power of the royal sheriffs and other officials, but also the power of the bailiffs of the barons. In addition, the royal council conducted numerous everyday business, in which the Justiciar and above all Montfort took over the management. However, Montfort's attempt to dominate the Anglo-French negotiations in Cambrai in November failed because the French king did not recognize Montfort's envoys and only negotiated with King Henry's direct envoys.
Power struggle between the king and the royal council
King Henry III had had to give in to pressure from the barons and had had to endorse all actions of the royal council during parliament in October 1258. To this end, he ordered his officials to swear obedience to the Provisions of Oxford. The royal council now tried to get the Pope's approval for the Provisions of Oxford. To do this, they wanted to renegotiate the succession to the Sicilian throne with the Pope and obtain his approval for the deposition of Aymer de Valence as Bishop of Winchester. In December 1258, the Sicilian adventure of running for the throne was finally broken off by Heinrich's son Edmund. With this at the latest, the king had become an opponent of the royal council, which he viewed only as a means of redistributing his royal power to fifteen other people. Nonetheless, he remained largely passive for most of 1259 as the nobility's initial enthusiasm and support for the work of the royal council waned. In particular, the investigation of abuses in the local administration of the barons caused unrest and tension. The ideals of Montfort, who increasingly directed the royal council, were not shared by many barons, most notably Richard de Clare, Peter of Savoy and Hugh Bigod. The royal council was thus divided into several camps. On November 14, 1259, the king sailed for France accompanied by the queen, Peter of Savoy, Richard de Clare and John Mansel. He made the French King Louis IX. On December 4th, tribute to Aquitaine and recognized the Treaty of Paris , which brought about peace between England and France. His return to England was delayed first because of arbitrations and decisions about the details of the contract, then because of illness. In England there was a crisis after the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd took advantage of the king's absence, broke the armistice and raided the royal Builth Castle . On January 16, 1260, Henry III wrote. to his Justiciar that Parliament would be canceled for Candlemas and that he should lead a relief army to Builth.
Simon de Montfort, who had also been in France since October 1259, returned to England in early 1260 and immediately denied the king's right not to convene parliament. He managed to get parliament to meet, but heightened xenophobia when he also expelled Peter of Savoy because of his origins from the State Council. However, he succeeded in winning the heir to the throne, Eduard , for whom his father's concessions in the Treaty of Paris went too far. Rumor has it that Lord Edward wanted to depose his father, and to prevent this, the Justiciar and Richard of Cornwall , the king's younger brother, intervened. There were light fighting, and the reform movement of the barons suddenly turned into a power struggle between Montfort and the king. King Henry III asked for assistance in March 1260 in a letter to Richard de Clare, who had already returned to England, and to Hugh Bigod. On April 25th he called up a royal army in London. Richard de Clare and other barons now openly switched to the king's side. The king reached London on April 30, 1260, held for him by Richard de Clare and Philip Basset . He received increasing support from other barons, whereupon the rebellion of Montfort and Lord Eduard collapsed. The king initially wanted to bring Montfort to justice, and some of Montfort's supporters lost their castles and their offices in the royal court. Through the mediation of Richard of Cornwall and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the king was reconciled with his eldest son Edward in May. But since the king had no means of paying his mercenaries more than July, he yielded to his advisors to reconcile himself with Montfort, at least superficially, and not to openly reject the Provisions of Oxford. Instead, he now called up an army for a campaign against Wales and appointed Richard de Clare and Montfort as their commanders. Before the army could leave for Wales, however, Richard de Clare renewed the truce of Montgomery after the Welsh conquered Builth Castle . In doing so, however, he had to go far towards the Welsh, and the king refused to ratify the agreement for several months.
After Lord Eduard had supported Montfort during Parliament in October, he made a superficial reconciliation with his father. He handed Bristol , the center of his possessions, to Philip Basset, and set out with two sons of Montfort in October 1260 for France, where they took part in tournaments.
Regaining the power of the king
At the end of 1260, Queen Eleanor and Peter of Savoy were able to persuade the king to take action against the power restrictions imposed by the Provisions of Oxford. The king tried to get the Pope to cancel his oath on the commission and asked the French king for help. However, he remained fickle and holed up in the Tower of London from February 9, 1261 . While he outwardly pretended to comply with the Provisions of Oxford, he tried at the same time to recruit mercenaries in Flanders. During Parliament, held in February and March, the King negotiated from the Tower until March 14, when the Royal Council agreed to hear his complaints. In order to avoid a civil war, the council agreed to an arbitration, which however failed at the end of April. At the beginning of May the king suddenly left the tower in an unguarded moment and occupied Dover Castle with the Cinque Ports . There he received papal letters and a 100-strong mercenary troop that he maintained until August. At the end of May he traveled to Winchester, where around June 12th he presented the papal bull that released him from oaths on commission. He then replaced the Justiciar Hugh le Despenser with Philip Basset and a little later appointed new sheriffs and constables for the royal castles.
This policy resulted in the king losing the support of numerous barons again, and his actions created confusion and disorder. Richard de Clare and Montfort allied again, and together with the Bishop of Worcester, the Earl of Hereford , the Earl of Surrey they tried to establish a kind of counter-government. They turned to Pope Alexander IV and Louis IX themselves . to mediate and in August called a parliament at St Albans , to which three representatives of the knighthood were to appear from each county south of the Trent . The King convened a Parliament in Windsor on the same day . He promised to free the counties from domination by the magnates, and since he had strong mercenary troops, the barons relented. Richard de Clare and his followers began negotiations with the King in Kingston , which were concluded on November 28th. A compromise was reached on the appointments to the sheriff's offices, and a committee was to mediate on further disputes. If the dispute persisted, Richard of Cornwall, who had returned from Germany, was supposed to mediate; the French king could be invoked as a last resort. Henry III. left the Tower, where he had been since October, promising a full pardon to those who accepted the Kingston treaty. Montfort went into exile in France.
On February 25, 1262, the king received a bull from the new Pope Urban IV , which confirmed the decision of Pope Alexander IV and continued to release the king from his oath on the Provisions of Oxford and Westminster. Thereupon he declared it invalid on May 2, 1262 and threatened anyone who further proclaimed it with imprisonment. In April the king had brought his half-brother William de Valence back from France. After Lord Eduard returned from France and his mother reconciled him with his father at the end of May, the magnates lacked a leader. Montfort was in exile, Richard de Clare was ill, and the majority of the barons were tired of political instability. In August, Lord Edward left England again and traveled to Gascony . Meanwhile the king tried to destroy Montfort. He traveled to France on July 14, 1262, to accuse Montfort, who was also a vassal of the French king, with the latter. The French king's attempts to mediate failed completely, but he refused to condemn Montfort. Montfort returned to England in October, while Henry III. fell ill in Paris from an epidemic that killed many of his companions. The weakened king remained in France before returning to England on December 20, 1262. Weakened, however, he spent the next three months in his palace in Westminster.
Riots and first fights
Another crisis had broken out in England during the king's long absence. Richard de Clare died shortly after the king left for France. When the king denied his inheritance to his 19-year-old son Gilbert de Clare because of his formal minority, entrusted William de Valence with the administration of his lands and snubbed him with the allocation of Wittum to his mother, he made this an enemy. The fall of Gilbert de Clare now served as a new example of the unjust manner in which King Henry III. interpreted the feudal law. After Roger of Leybourne and other knights of the heir to the throne had fallen out of favor with the Queen in early 1262 and had to leave the court, they occupied the royal Gloucester Castle in the summer of 1262 , but were driven out again by royal troops shortly afterwards. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd had also used the king's absence again and attacked the Welsh Marches . In November 1262 he attacked Cefnllys Castle , a castle owned by Roger Mortimer of Wigmore . By the end of the year he conquered the rule, then he attacked the neighboring Brecknockshire , a rule of Humphrey V. de Bohun , and brought it under his control. He then besieged Abergavenny Castle , a castle of Lord Edward. Because of their dissatisfaction with Roger of Leybourne's dismissal, many Marcher Lords refused to help the constable. It was only thanks to the relief of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore that the siege failed. The king's inability to stop the Welsh attacks increased the barons' discontent with the reign of King Henry III.
The revolt of 1263
After his return from France, the king wanted to accommodate the knighthood and the passed pawns and at the end of January 1263 recognized a new version of the Provisions of Westminster. The king called his barons to Westminster in March 1263 to pay homage to his son Lord Edward . Gilbert de Clare refused, and a small group of barons turned to Montfort, who had returned to England on April 25, 1263. The aristocratic opposition held a council meeting in Oxford on May 20, led by Montfort, Gilbert de Clare and the Earl of Surrey . Montfort succeeded in reuniting the aristocratic opposition, which Henry of Almain , a son of Richard of Cornwall, also joined. The barons asked the king to recognize the Provisions of Oxford and declared all who refused to be public enemies. At the same time the king sought support for a campaign against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd to relieve the beleaguered Marcher Lords. For August 1, 1263 he called the feudal army for a campaign in Wales to Worcester. He clearly refused to recognize the commission, which led to armed rebellions in the Welsh Marches. Gilbert de Clare and Roger de Clifford seized Peter D'Aigueblanche , the Savoy-born bishop of Hereford , and imprisoned him at Eardisley Castle . Then they occupied Gloucester Castle. Further attacks by the rebels were directed against Queen Eleanor, her relatives and allies, as well as against the heir apparent Edward, who had allied himself with Roger Mortimer, and against Peter of Savoy and Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury. Montfort allied with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, and under his leadership the rebels moved east.
Maneuvered and short of money, the king retired to the Tower on June 19, whereupon Montfort pushed forward from the Midlands to south-east England and brought the Cinque Ports into his power, so that Henry III. could not expect any help from the French king. In addition, Montfort secured support from London after a radical group toppled the city's oligarchs . Presumably on the advice of Richard of Cornwall, the king offered Montfort concessions, but the latter refused. The heir to the throne plundered the treasures kept in the New Temple and withdrew with his mercenaries to Windsor Castle , other courtiers fled abroad. The Queen wanted to leave the King in the Tower on July 13 and join her son, but was driven back into the Tower by an angry mob. On July 15, the rebels occupied the city, and a day later the King, locked in the Tower, accepted their demands: reassignment of the Provisions of Oxford, filling of offices only with English and banishment of all foreigners with a few exceptions. Then moved Heinrich III. and Eleanor back to the Palace of Westminster .
Second rule of the barons
Representatives of the barons now took over government in London as well as in the counties, but the real ruler of England was Montfort. Montfort's most important supporters were the clergy under the leadership of Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester, with the barons he could rely above all on Hugh le Despenser and Peter de Montfort . Supported by the barons in the spring of 1263, Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Surrey , Henry of Almain , Henry Hastings , John fitz John , Roger of Leybourne , Nicholas Segrave , Geoffrey de Lucy, John FitzAlan , William de Munchensi , Roger de Clifford , John Giffard , John de Vaux , Hamo le Strange , James Audley , Reginald FitzPeter, William de Braose as well as the Northern English barons John de Vescy and Robert de Vipont Montfort. Most of his supporters belonged to the Marcher Lords and had chosen him out of dissatisfaction with the rule of King Henry III. and joined by Lord Eduard. Influential barons such as the Earl of Norfolk , the Earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer, as well as many barons from northern England, stayed on the king's side.
The Montfort government quickly concluded a truce with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, to whom they even offered a peace treaty in August. The Marcher Lords in particular feared territorial losses as a result of this alliance. Their loyalty began to falter, as Montfort, even as high steward, had primarily assigned lucrative offices and posts to his own supporters, and he did not keep his promise to the parliament in September 1262 to compensate for looted properties.
After the king had to publicly recognize the Provisions of Oxford on September 9, 1263, Montfort agreed to an arbitration ruling by the French king on the legality of the commission in view of the distribution of powers and allowed the king to travel to France himself. On September 23, Henry III, Elenore and two of their sons traveled to Boulogne , accompanied by Montfort and his supporters. They wanted a decision from King Ludwig IX. and return immediately. Surprisingly, the latter initially agreed to the agreements concluded in July and advocated compensation for looting. Eleanor and Lord Edmund then stayed in France, contrary to their promises, while Heinrich and Eduard returned to Westminster for the October Parliament. While the king demanded the appointment of his own candidates to ministerial positions, Montfort's supporters made mutual accusations and their government fell apart. Thereupon the heir to the throne took the initiative, who now put together a strong, royalist party.
Resistance of Lord Eduard against the rule of Montfort
As early as August 1263, Lord Eduard had made up with Leyburn and his followers, who had been expelled from his court by his mother 18 months earlier. On October 16, he occupied Windsor Castle, where the king followed him. As a result, the Earl of Surrey, Henry of Almain, Roger de Clifford, John Vaux, Hamo le Strange, John FitzAlan, Reginald FitzPeter, James Audley and William de Braose joined Lord Eduard by the end of the year. Nicholas Segrave, John FitzJohn and Henry de Hastings stayed on Montfort's side, and Montfort had the support of the Earl of Derby and the Earl of Oxford as well as that of the younger Humphrey V. de Bohun. However, Montfort was now forced to sign a truce negotiated with Richard of Cornwall on November 1st. According to this, the king would recognize the commission if the French king agreed to them again. In the meantime, Heinrich III. to Oxford and dismissed the treasurer and chancellor appointed by Montfort . He was also able to win back Winchester Castle in early December by trying to win Dover Castle . Montfort, however, was trapped in Southwark and had to be liberated by the Londoners. To this end, Pope Urban IV appointed Gui Foucois as the new papal legate, presumably at the instigation of Queen Eleonore, and instructed him to restore the king's authority.
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The Mise of Amiens
On December 28, the king traveled to France and met the ambassadors of the barons before Louis IX. in Amiens. Both sides put forward elaborated representations of their claims. In his arbitration award on January 23, 1264, the Mise of Amiens , the French king rejected the commission this time and spoke to Henry III. the right to appoint his ministers according to his will. The queen's diplomacy, the support of the Pope, and the assurance that the majority of the magnates Henry III. supported as well as the indignation of Louis IX. contributed to the attacks by the supporters of Montfort on members of the clergy. Henry III. had apparently won a clear victory.
This gave Montfort the opportunity to rally his supporters, who otherwise had the full restoration of royal authority as an alternative. Previously, his followers had convincingly spread the claim that the king would no longer be able to rule without the supervision of a council of state: he would have consistently tried to rise above the law had he broken his oaths on the commissions, he would would pursue a catastrophic and unwanted policy like the Sicilian adventure, violate the freedom of the church and abuse the idea of the crusade, he would have accepted many foreigners at his court and wasted his funds, tolerated the abuse of office of his officials and allowed his favorites in the country. An armed struggle was now imminent between the two camps. To this end, Montfort reaffirmed its alliance with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.
The Barons' War
Beginning of the open civil war
As soon as the Mise of Amiens became known, Montfort gave the signal to rebellion by having his sons attack their enemies in the Welsh Marches in early 1264, presumably with the tolerance of Prince Llywelyn. Lord Edward left France and managed to terrorize Gloucester. The king returned to England on February 14th and raised an army within three weeks. He set up his headquarters in Oxford, but characteristically remained passive until the end of Lent in early April 1264. He turned down Montfort's offer to accept the Mise of Amiens if, in return, he only gave offices to the English as a restriction on his power. A group of younger barons, many of whom had previously been exploited under the tutelage of the king while they were minors, sided with Montfort.
The fighting up to the Battle of Lewes
However, the first battles were successful for the king. With the help of the Marcher Lords, Lord Eduard was able to conquer Huntingdon , Hay and Brecknockshire. Then he captured Gloucester Castle , marched east, and united with his father's army. Surprisingly, they appeared before Northampton and were able to conquer the city and Northampton Castle by April 7 , whereby Simon de Montfort the Younger was taken prisoner. He then conquered Nottingham and Leicester . Gilbert de Clare, who had been waiting for the development in Tonbridge Castle , besieged Rochester Castle together with Montfort on April 18 . The castle was appalled by the king and Lord Edward, who had rushed to the southeast. They then captured Tonbridge Castle after Gilbert de Clare withdrew to London. In the Weald , the rebels tried to ambush the king. Thereupon he had 315 peasant archers beheaded in Ticehurst on May 2nd, on the advice of his brother Richard of Cornwall . Then he occupied the Cinque Ports and prepared a blockade of London. When Montfort was forced to leave the capital, he moved south. The king reached Lewes on May 11th , where Montfort and his army also arrived on May 12th, 1264. After negotiations failed, the Battle of Lewes took place on May 14 , in which Montfort was able to decisively defeat the supporters of the king. Lord Eduard, Henry of Almain and others were captured and served as hostages for the followers of the king's followers. Montfort had once again become the de facto ruler of England.
Third rule of the barons
After his defeat at Lewes, King Henry III. Montfort and Gilbert de Clare officially amnestied. Montfort now wanted to continue his reforms and convened a parliament for the end of June. The parliament of June 23rd passed a comprehensive change of government. Instead of the 15-member State Council, a three-member committee was formed, including Montfort, Gilbert de Clare and Bishop Stephen Bersted of Chichester. This committee was to elect a nine-member council of state to advise the king. The real power, however, lay with the three-person committee and above all with Montfort, who appointed the ministers and dignitaries of the court. The king only had symbolic power by approving the actions of Montfort. Despite the victory of Lewes, however, there was still no peace in the empire, as Montfort failed to gain general recognition for his rule. The royal castles were to surrender to his government, but the occupations of several castles such as Pevensey or Gloucester Castle did not surrender. A number of the king's supporters such as the Earl of Pembroke continued the fight and eventually fled into exile. In Wales, with the help of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who conquered several castles, Montfort and Clare were able to force the Marcher Lords to the truce of Montgomery on August 25, 1264 . They undertook to release their prisoners, hand over more castles and answer in court. Still, the Marcher Lords were not defeated, and soon they revoked the truce for not accepting Montfort's collaboration with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. A first attempt at liberation of the captive Lord Eduard was repulsed by Guy de Montfort at Wallingford . A government campaign forced the Marcher Lords to subdue Worcester in December 1264, and Lord Edward had to hand over Cheshire and the city and Bristol Castle to the government for compensation in England. Roger de Mortimer, Roger de Clifford and their allies were exiled to Ireland for a year. Another threat was Queen Eleanor, who had remained in France. She gathered an army of mercenaries in Flanders, but in the end she abandoned the planned incursion into England and contented herself with mistaking Gascon for her husband.
On December 14, 1265, Montfort convened what would later be called De Montfort's Parliament , which was later to be called De Montfort's Parliament , and which included not only the barons and bishops, but for the first time four elected representatives from each county of South Trent, making it the founding institution of today's House of Commons applies. This shows how little he could count on the support of the magnates, whereas over a hundred abbots and bishops met at parliament.
Another civil war and Battle of Evesham
However, Montforts increasingly lost the support of the barons. He had given his sons lucrative offices and other supporters with fiefs from defeated opponents. His government fell out over the distribution of the booty, the prisoners' ransom and other points of contention. Ultimately, Montfort's quasi autocratic rule was also contested. In February Montfort got into an argument with the Earl of Derby and ordered his arrest. In May, the Earls of Surrey and Pembroke landed in Pembrokeshire , and Gilbert de Clare switched sides and joined them. Thereupon Montfort moved with Lord Edward and the king to Hereford , which he reached on May 24th. With the help of Thomas de Clare , the brother of Gilbert de Clare, Lord Eduard escaped on May 28th. He reunited with Roger Mortimer in Wigmore, who had not gone into exile in Ireland, and with Gilbert de Clare in Ludlow. Gilbert and Eduard blocked the Severn crossing in Gloucester , trapping Montfort west of the Severn. Although Montfort renewed his alliance with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in the Pipton-on-Wye Agreement on June 19, 1265 and recognized him as Prince of Wales , but the royal troops were superior to his forces. Gilbert de Clare and Lord Eduard were only able to defeat Montfort's son Simon on August 1 at Kenilworth , and shortly afterwards there was a decisive battle at Evesham on August 4 , in which the royal party decisively defeated the supporters of Montfort. Montfort fell in battle.
Continuation of the civil war
The king failed to stop his son and his followers' thirst for revenge. Immediately after the victory of Evesham, Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Surrey and Lord Eduard occupied large estates of the defeated rebels. Then the King and Lord Edward tried to restore royal authority. In September they summoned Bristol Castle and the other remaining castles in the hands of the supporters of Montfort to submission, whereupon most of the castles surrendered. A parliament was convened in Winchester in mid-September to decide the fate of the remaining supporters of Montfort. The surviving sons of Montfort and his widow were to leave England by early 1266. On October 1, King Henry III announced. the cancellation of all measures which he had to do after the battle of Lewes under the control of Montfort. The parliament decided that all properties of the rebels, including those already occupied, including the income due on Michaelmas day, must be handed over to the king. At the same time, all stolen property and all stolen livestock should be returned to their respective property. On the advice of his secretary Robert Waleran, the king left the clarification of the distribution of the occupied lands to his supporters. As a result, the lands of 254 rebel knights and barons were confiscated and distributed to 71 of the king's favorites. The lion's share went to members of the royal family, knights of the household, and public officials. Faced with their expropriation and ruined, hundreds of knights and their supporters started a guerrilla war that extended the civil war, which had already been decided, by two years. The rebels, the so-called disinherited , who were driven from their estates , formed bands of robbers. Due to the change of ownership and the continued looting, the administration and economy collapsed in large parts of the country over the next two years. Against this resistance, the supporters of the king under the leadership of Lord Edward acted ruthlessly, but the final suppression of the rebellion proceeded only slowly. Lord Eduard initially managed, together with the Cinque Ports, to curb the piracy on the south coast of England, which had seriously damaged trade. Together with Roger de Leyburn, he then succeeded in defeating the rebels in eastern England, and Henry of Almain defeated a rebel group in May 1266 at the Battle of Chesterfield , in which the former Earl of Derby was captured. However, the rebel resistance has not yet been broken. A group of rebels under John de Deyville occupied the Isle of Ely and continued the fight in eastern England. In Kenilworth Castle , Simon de Montfort the Younger, who should have left the country by January 1266, holed up with a strong rebel force. Then the king began to siege the castle in June 1266. The siege was difficult and after several attacks were repulsed by the strong garrison, the king ordered the castle to be blocked and starved.
The Dictum of Kenilworth
To end the war, Gilbert de Clare had already tried in the spring and summer of 1266, together with Lord Eduard and the papal legate Ottobono Fieschi, to achieve a balance. With the help of Richard of Cornwall, the Dictum of Kenilworth was finally created , which was passed by Parliament in Northampton and proclaimed by the king in the encampment outside Kenilworth on October 31, 1266. With this program a comprehensive compensation was sought, but even this Dictum of Kenilworth did not bring final peace. The crews at Kenilworth and Ely continued to refuse to surrender because some of their leaders were excluded from the regulations or because they did not have the funds to buy back their goods. They also doubted the goodwill of the king and his courts. With no hope of relief and after the last of its supplies had been used up, the castle finally had to surrender on December 14, 1266.
End of the Barons' War
The Isle of Ely had thus become one of the last bases of the rebels. In February 1267 the king moved to Bury St Edmunds to campaign against the rebels of Ely. However, the campaign was interrupted in April by Gilbert de Clare. This did not feel sufficiently rewarded for his services during the civil war and now campaigned for milder conditions for the disinherited. In the spring of 1267 he retired to Glamorgan , which he recently acquired from his mother's Wittum, and raised an army there. He now asked the king to return their possessions to the disinherited. The king, who was in Canterbury , refused this request. Gilbert de Clare now sent followers to London and to Ely, and together with the rebels from Ely his troops occupied London in early April 1267, which again sided with the rebels. On April 8, de Clare reached London and was preparing to fight the king for the city. Henry III. pulled together troops in Windsor and Stratford in Essex in early May , to this he sent Roger de Leyburn to France to recruit more troops. But on April 20, de Clare had already started negotiations with Richard of Cornwall and Philip Basset , who also resisted the complete expropriation of the disinherited. A peaceful agreement was reached with the mediation of Cardinal Ottobono Fieschi. On May 13, de Clare and his troops withdrew to Southwark , and on June 16, 1267, he reached an agreement with the king. He and all his followers were given an amnesty, and the Dictum of Kenilworth was amended to allow the rebels to repurchase their estates and pay the fine from the proceeds of their estates. To this end, commissions were to be formed to clarify legal issues, and Cardinal Ottobono promised the disinherited financial support from the clergy. On June 18, the king returned to London, and on July 1, Deyville and several other disinherited people were offered the repurchase of their estates under the Dictum of Kenilworth. Lord Edward moved with an army against the last remaining rebels on the Isle of Ely. Due to the dry summer months, the army was able to overcome the surrounding swamps, and after the heir to the throne threatened execution, the last disinherited surrendered. This ended the Second Barons' War, and for the first time since 1263 peace returned to southern England.
Peace with Lord Llywelyn and the Statute of Marlborough
Since after the exhausting war the king had no more funds for a campaign against Wales, the king had already started negotiations with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in February 1267. When these stalled, the king himself moved to the Welsh Marches in August to negotiate with the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. It was ultimately Cardinal Ottobono who negotiated the Treaty of Montgomery in September , in which the King recognized the Welsh conquests and the rank of Llywelyn as Prince of Wales , while Llywelyn paid homage to the King as overlord. This compromise demonstrated the king's war weariness. The Statute of Marlborough , passed on November 18 by a Parliament in which the Commons may also participate, upheld the Magna Charta, the Dictum of Kenilworth and a modified version of the Provisions of Westminster, which ended the Civil War in an arbitration.
literature
- John Sadler: Second Barons' War. Simon De Montfort and the Battles of Lewes and Evesham. Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley 2008. ISBN 978-1-84415-831-7 .
- HW Ridgeway: Henry III (1207-1272). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
Web links
- TimeRef.com: The Second Barons' War (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 80.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 81.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 88.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 96.
- ^ Gloucestershire Archives: Gloucester Castle in the Second Barons. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; accessed on June 15, 2015 .
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 97.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 105.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 106.
- ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 314.
- ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 119.
- ↑ Magna Carta 800th: 2nd Barons' War. Retrieved June 18, 2015 .
- ↑ Michael Prestwich: Edward I . Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 59.