The Battle of Evesham 1265 And Its Aftermath

In the early morning of 4th August 1265, the earl of Leicester, Simon De Montfort was approaching the town of Evesham in Worcestershire. In De Montfort’s company was King Henry III. De Montfort was Henry’s brother in law as he was married to the king’s sister, Eleanor. But this was no family outing. Having been one-time friends, De Montfort and Henry were now enemies and, for the last year, De Montfort held the upper hand. Having grown sick of the king’s incompetent rule, De Montfort and his fellow barons defeated a royalist army at the Battle of Lewes in 1264. De Montfort became the main power in England and, as he headed towards Evesham, Henry, alongside him, was, effectively, his prisoner.

On arriving in Evesham, the king demanded that he be allowed to eat breakfast, which he did, although De Montfort apparently did not. It was then decided that De Montfort and the king would travel to Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. Before they had set out, an unwelcome sight met De Montfort’s eyes. In the distance, a large army was approaching. It was led by Prince Edward, son of Henry III, coming to free his father. Edward had also been De Montfort’s captive but managed to escape. The Earl of Leicester was awestruck at the size of the royalist army which was far bigger than the force available to him and realised that he was now in deep trouble. With Henry fleeing to his son, De Montfort prepared for battle that he clearly felt was a foregone conclusion.

The battle was unforgiving with the Royalist army showing no mercy to De Montfort’s men. Most of his army was wiped out including De Montfort’s son, Henry, and a man named Hugh Despenser, the grandfather of a nobleman of the same name who would cause such trouble during the reign of Edward II. De Montfort himself was killed with his body being horribly mutilated as his head, hands, feet and private parts were cut off. De Montfort, Henry and Despenser were all buried in the nearby abbey. Soon after De Montfort’s death, it was reported that fierce storms broke out. So Henry III was restored to power, with all of the credit for that going to Prince Edward rather than the hapless king. And Simon De Montfort, the man who helped shape the future of Parliament in this country, was no more.

Despite De Montfort’s death, Henry still had issues to sort out if he wanted to reestablish his authority over England. In late September 1265, Henry gathered his nobles together at Windsor and demanded that the leading citizens of London come to meet him and agree to a peace settlement. There was some reluctance from the Londoners to do so. It was they who had taken a special disliking to Henry’s Queen, Eleanor of Provence, whose family had arrived in England and done very well for themselves. The Londoners, on one occasion, showed the Queen what they thought of her by pelting her barge with anything they could find as she sailed up the Thames. In the end, the Londoners agreed to send 40 of their leading men to hold discussions with the king. They were duped however. Henry first took the keys to the capital into his possession before throwing the 40 men into prison. A few weeks later, Henry held Parliament during which he dispossessed lands and property of the key rebels.

But Henry could not afford to take too firm a stance on the rebels. If he did, then it could potentially drive the Barons who had not been appeased into another rebellion. If they found another Simon De Montfort to lead them, then Henry could lose his crown permanently.  Realising this, in August 1266, Henry put his seal on the Dictum of Kenilworth, which promised to protect the freedoms and liberties of the nobilities and even stated that those who had been dispossessed in the aftermath of Evesham could have their lands and property back. However, trust with the king was at an all time low and in Gilbert De Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, men still dissatisfied with the king had another potential figurehead to flock behind. Gloucester made his way quietly into London to hold talks with potential rebels. But the king got word of this potential plot in its infancy and quickly gathered an army. Gilbert and his fellow barons agreed to meet the king and peace was agreed with most, although not all, reconciled with the king. The worst of Henry III’s troubles were over, which was just as well as he was, by this point, over 60 years, an old man for his time. In the final years of his reign, the remains of Edward The Confessor, whom Henry idolised, were transferred into a splendid new tomb at Westminster Abbey. And Henry’s son and heir, Prince Edward, in 1270, travelled to the Holy Land on Crusade. Edward was still away from home when Henry III died in November 1272. He was now King Edward I and, as we’ve seen glimpses of in this post, he was a very different character compared to his father.