Henry had accepted Magna Carta<\/a>, and his financial exactions (though still resented) were far lower than John\u2019s as a result. His critics, though, saw him as a simple-minded, naive king who had plunged into ill-advised projects, including trying to place his second son on the throne of Sicily. In his open-handed way, Henry had also given gigantic rewards to his foreign relatives, thus creating tensions at court and divisions with his English subjects.<\/p>\n And Henry, politically unaware, had failed to reform local government. This meant his sheriffs and judges had become increasingly oppressive. Magnates, too, had been allowed to expand their local power. If there was peace, it seemed to be peace with injustice. So when we get to 1258, there was revolution in the court of Henry, with one group of courtiers turning on another, led by Henry\u2019s half-brothers from Poitou.<\/p>\n The central character is Henry III\u2019s brother in-law Simon de Montfort<\/a>, Earl of Leicester, one of the most extraordinary people to have ever dignified and defiled \u2013 at the same time \u2013 English history. He is central to the seizure of power in 1258, in which a baronial council took over the government of the kingdom in a revolution far more radical than Magna Carta.<\/p>\n The sealing of Magna Carta in 1215 left King John in charge of central government. He could still appoint ministers and pursue what policies he liked. In 1258, a baronial council reduced Henry to a cipher and essentially then ruled the country. Simon de Montfort was integral to that.<\/p>\n Montfort became even more central after 1261, when Henry recovered power. At that point Montfort left England, only to return in 1263. Between his great victory at Lewes in May 1264 and his death at the battle of Evesham in August 1265, he was the real ruler of the country. He was the first magnate to seize power and govern the kingdom. He was also the first populist leader in English history because he had a wonderful political sense of the issues that would resonate with the public.<\/p>\n From the word go, Montfort was highly controversial. His enemies thought he was driven by a lust for power. He also had a series of material grievances, because although he had married the king\u2019s sister, he constantly said he had not received the lands and endowment that ought to have gone with her. Montfort saw the revolution of 1258 as remedying his own grievances as well as those of everyone else.<\/p>\n Montfort was driven by a strong sense of religiosity. One of the most remarkable things about this period, and a major theme of my book, was the intertwining of religion and politics. What drove Montfort \u2013 and in some ways, the whole reform of 1258 \u2013 was this deep feeling that the barons had to reform the realm in order to purify their own souls. They thought that to get salvation, they had to act justly themselves.<\/p>\n Montfort\u2019s father had led the Albigensian Crusade<\/a> (1209\u201318) in southern France, and Montfort, like his father, was seeking a righteous cause for which he might fight and, if necessary, die. Montfort had a political feel for the issues that would galvanise local communities. What he seized on when he came back to England in 1263 was \u2018England for the English\u2019.<\/p>\n This is a very important period in the development of English national identity shaped, unfortunately, by hostility to foreigners. In 1263, he introduced the Statute against Aliens, which stated that no foreigner could ever hold office in England, and that all foreigners must depart, apart from those who were accepted by parliament.<\/p>\n Vitally, Montfort was also a great general. Unlike Henry III, he knew how to fight war and understood its brutal violence. That\u2019s partly because he\u2019d been the king\u2019s lieutenant in Gascony in the 1250s, where he ravaged the lands and the crops of his enemies. He did that when he came back in 1263. In 1264, he won a battle at Lewes and, against all the odds, captured the king.<\/p>\n You needed huge self-confidence to fight a battle, so most people avoided them. Yet Montfort marched out of London early in May 1264 with no other aim than to bring the king\u2019s army to battle. He did so by taking his army up onto the top of the Downs during the night, so that when the king woke in Lewes Priory he looked up and there was Montfort\u2019s army above. They came crashing down to win the battle in which Henry, his brother and his son were all taken prisoner.<\/p>\n One is Henry\u2019s queen, Eleanor of Provence. She played a very important part in the politics of this period. She was far tougher than Henry. She supported the revolution of 1258 against her husband, because it got rid of the king\u2019s Poitevin half-brothers, with whom her faction of foreigners from Savoy were at daggers drawn.<\/p>\n After supporting the revolution of 1258, she changed her mind and played a big part in Henry\u2019s initial recovery of power in 1261. Antagonisms she created helped lay the ground for Montfort\u2019s return to England and seizure of power in 1263. A year later, Eleanor was abroad after Henry\u2019s capture at Lewes, and she gathered a large army in Flanders to invade England.<\/p>\nYou state that Henry is less central to volume two than to volume one. Who is the key figure in this story?<\/h3>\n
What made Simon de Montfort tick?<\/h3>\n
This is a very important period in the development of English national identity shaped, unfortunately, by hostility to foreigners <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
What about other key characters in the story?<\/h3>\n
![\""Eleanor\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/05\/GettyImages-463990015-7e07eb0-e1684401584177.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"Eleanor\\"\/")
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