de Montfort. However, the rule of Simon de Montfort did not last long. A quarrel arose between him and the Earl of Gloucester, and the Fall of Simon king's eldest son Edward took advantage of it to escape, joined the Mortimers, and got together an army. Simon de Montfort marched to Wales, but Edward defeated one of his sons at Kenilworth, and then hemmed in de Montfort himself in the corner made by the Severn and the Avon, and defeated him at the battle of Evesham on the latter river. In this battle Simon de Montfort was killed, and the attempt of the barons to control the government came to an end. Results of Happily Edward was a very different man from his father, and had learnt a great deal from the struggle in which he had been engaged. It was due to him that what was good in de Montfort's de Montfort's arrangements was preserved. To all rebellion. appearances Simon de Montfort's rebellion was a failure, but it led to three great results. First, after it we hear of no more inroads of foreign favourites; second, it marks the end of the pope's interference in England as overlord; and third, it gave people an ideal to aim at; and from this time forward, a Parliament representing the whole nation, to which the king's ministers should be responsible, was the ideal at which the statesman of this country aimed. reign. After some fighting at Kenilworth and Ely, the country settled down again; indeed, the latter years of the reign of Henry III. seem Close of the to have been years of unusual prosperity, and in 1270 the times were so settled, that Prince Edward went on a Crusade, and while he was away his father died, in 1272. Henry III. was a weak king; he had the misfortune to ascend the throne when a child; he inherited from his father character. a detestation of the Great Charter and its principles, and allowed himself too easily to fall into the hands of foreigners, who had no other object than the satisfaction of their own ambition. Henry's For chief general events, and the battles and sieges of the earlicr Angevin kings, see pp. 132 and 133. X. THE KINGS OF FRANCE BETWEEN 1270 AND 1422, AND CLAIM OF EDWARD III. TO THE FRENCH CROWN. John I., d. 1316. Joan, Queen of Navarre. Charles V., 1364-1380. CHAPTER I. EDWARD I., 1272-1307 (35 years). 1254, Eleanor of Castile. Born 1239; married {1299, Margaret of France. Chief Characters of the Reign.-Llewellyn Prince of Wales, John Balliol, Robert Bruce (elder and younger), William Wallace, John Comyn, Earl Warrenne, Humphrey Bohun, and Roger Bigod. Accession of THE heir to the throne being abroad, the government was carried on by the Archbishop of York and the Chancellor Walter of Merton. They had allegiance sworn to Edward in Edward. his absence by the great men, so that his reign is the first which dates from the death of the last king; former kings had always counted from their coronation. Commercial treaty with Flanders. By leisurely steps Edward returned to England, and spent some time in Italy, France, and Guienne before he crossed the Channel. Always fond of martial pursuits, he engaged in a tournament at Châlon, in the Duchy of Burgundy, which ended in a deadly combat, in which many lives were lost, but from which Edward came out victorious. More important than this feat of arms was the treaty he made with the Countess of Flanders, by which the wool trade between England and the Netherlands, which had been interrupted, was renewed. England was the greatest wool-growing country of the west of Europe, so this trade was of the utmost importance, and from this time the alliance between England and Flanders was regarded as being of the greatest consequence to both nations. Edward reached England in 1274, and his activity during the thirtythree years of his reign will compare with that of any Comparison of Edward with other English monarch. In some ways he resembled his great-grandfather, Henry II. He had the same energy and regard for order; but he had the advantage of not being Henry II. |