Montfort
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
SIMON DE, an English and statesman, born general about 1208. He quitted France for England in 1231 or 1236, where the estates to which he was heir were taken possession of with the title Earl of Leicester. Henry III. permitted him to marry his sister, the Countess dowager of Pembroke, and appointed him lieutenant-general , or seneschal of Gascony . From this time the interest of English history turns on the disputes between this turbulent subject at the head of a confederacy of the barons and the crown, the first incident in it being Montfort's recall from his government. In 1258 Henry had convoked a Parliament, to procure supplies for the conquest of Sicily. ly. Montfort and the barons made an armed protest against his government, the end of which was the appointment of 24 of their number, with Montfort as president, to administer the affairs of the kingdom. The king and his son, Prince Edward, endeavoring to reconquer the royal authority by force of arms, were defeated at the battle of Lewes, 1264. In 1265, De Montfort convened a Parliament, in which representatives were sent from the boroughs for the first time on record and thus originated the House of Commons. He was now the leader of the popular party, and was obliged to take the field by the disaffection of the Earl of Gloucester who, with many other of the barons, joined Prince Edward. The battle of Evesham, Aug. 4, 1265, decided the contest. Simon de Montfort, overpowered by numbers, fell and the ruin of his family succeeded.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative Collier's gave in 1921 — Gascony, the barons' council of 1258, Lewes in 1264, Evesham on 4 August 1265 — is still the narrative historians tell, and the dates have not moved. What has shifted is the meaning attached to the 1265 assembly: Collier's says it "thus originated the House of Commons," whereas modern scholarship treats Simon's summoning of two burgesses from each borough as a partisan move to shore up support after Gloucester defected, one step in a long parliamentary evolution rather than a democratic founding. Historians now also give weight to what Victorian and Edwardian accounts passed over — his role in expelling the Jews from Leicester and the killing of Jews in London during the baronial wars — so the "leader of the popular party" is a far more ambivalent figure at his 750th anniversary in 2015 than he was in 1921.
Written for this edition, 2026.