oops: Simon De Montfort and Eleanor Plantagenet
John Carmi Parsons
of Pembroke, who died in 1231 without issue by her (she was rumored to be
pregnant at the time of his death, but if this were true, no live-born child
resulted). Eleanor then married, in January 1238, Simon de Montfort, second
son of the crusading Simon de Montfort, count of Evreux in Normandy, by Alicia
or Alina de Montmorency. The crusader Simon's mother, Amice de Beaumont,
became heir in her issue of the English earls of Leicester of that family.
Simon, as his parents' second son, went to England in 1230 to claim his right
to his mother's family's inheritance, and quickly won the favor of Henry III,
who was chronically inclined to show more favor to foreigners than to his own
English subjects. Simon obtained the Leicester estates from Henry in the late
summer of 1231, though he was not recognized as earl of Leicester until 1239.
Montfort's favored position at court soon won him many enemies among the
English magnates, including the king's brother Earl Richard of Cornwall, and
it was for that reason that Henry secretly promoted Simon's marriage to
Eleanor, which was privately celebrated in the king's personal chapel in the
palace of Westminster. Earl Richard had not been forewarned about it, and there
was bloody hell to pay afterward because Richard and the other barons felt that
the king should have used his sister's marriage to greater diplomatic effect.
The real problem with the marriage, however, was that after her first husband's
death Eleanor had been inveigled by her governess, a vowed widow, to take a vow
of perpetual celibacy herself. No dispensation to end the effects of that vow
was obtained before Eleanor and Simon married, so subsequently they had to go
on pilgrimage to Rome and beseech the pope to pardon the transgression, bless
their marriage and assign a penance. They ended up having to pay for the
construction of a Dominican priory in Bordeaux, where they later buried one of
their infant daughters (see below).
On Simon's career in general, the standard reference today is John Maddicott's
superb *Simon de Montfort* (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
As far as we know, Eleanor and Simon had 7 children:
1. Henry de Montfort, b. ca 26 Nov. 1238, possibly a godson of Henry III
(Maddicott finds no contemporary evidence for that); fell at Evesham with his
father in August 1265. So far as we know, unmarried.
2. Simon de Montfort, b. ca April 1240, apparently while his parents were
in Italy on the aforementioned pilgrimage; exiled after Evesham, he wandered
across Europe with his brother Guy, with whom in 1271 he participated in the
murder at Viterbo of their cousin Henry of Cornwall, elder son and heir of
Earl Richard abovenamed. This was regarded as a particularly heinous crime as
the victim was hearing mass at the time and died clutching the altar, begging
for mercy. The murder was said to be in revenge for young Henry's desertion of
the elder Simon de Montfort's cause in 1263 and for that Simon's death at
Evesham. Simon the younger died later that same year (1271) near Siena. He
was unmarried.
3. Amaury de Montfort, b. between May 1242 and April 1243; became a cleric and
had a distinguished career in the Church: papal chaplain, treasurer of York
cathedral, and canon of Rouen, Evreux, London and Lincoln, at least nominally
(he had received such appointments during his father's glory years, but
actually enjoyed few of them). He died in Italy ca 1300.
4. Guy de Montfort, b. ca 1244; like his brother Simon he wandered Europe as an
exile after 1265, but ultimately took service with Charles of Anjou, younger
brother of King Louis IX, the Montforts' kinsman through Blanche of Castile.
Guy served Charles as Vicar-General in Tuscany, and there married Margherita
Aldobrandescha, by whom he left two daughters from whom all Simon de Montfort's
living descendants are traced. Guy died a prisoner of the Aragonese faction
in Sicily sometime around 1291.
5. A daughter, b. while her parents were living in Gascony between 1248
and 1251; d. an infant, and buried in the Dominican priory in Bordeaux.
Her parents paid for construction of the friars' dormitory in her memory.
6. Richard, whom Maddicott identifies with the child known to have been b. at
Kenilworth Castle in 1252. He was allowed to leave England with his mother
late in 1265; she meant to send him to Simon's relative the count of Bigorre
in Gascony, but Richard vanishes from the records after 1266. Maddicott
surmises that he went to Gascony but died there around 1266. He was unmarried.
7. Eleanor, b. ca 1258 according to Maddicott; before 1265 her father
betrothed her to Llywelyn "the last," prince of North Wales. She was raised in
France, and when attempting to reach Wales by sea with her brother Amaury she
was taken prisoner in 1275 and detained in the household of Queen Eleanor of
Castile until Edward, having defeated Llywelyn in a brief campaign in the
summer of 1277, allowed the Welsh marriage to go ahead a few months later. As
is well known, Eleanor de Montfort died in childbirth in 1282 after bearing her
only child Gwenllian, who was consigned to the nunnery at Sempringham after
Edward I conquered Wales in 1284. Gwenllian died, of course unmarried, on 7
June 1337, aged 55. It used to be supposed that she was deliberately kept
ignorant of her parentage, but a letter from her in her adulthood exists,
complaining to the then-Chancellor of England that a pension assigned her by
her kinsman Edward I was in arrears.
John Parsons
William Addams Reitwiesner
See Gary Boyd Roberts, *Notable Kin*, vol. 1 [Santa Clarita: Boyer, 1998],
pp. 34-44 for some of the descendants of this Guy and Margherita's daughter
Anastasia, such as Elizabeth Woodville (d. 1492), Popes Leo X (d. 1521) and
Paul III (d. 1549), and so on.
> Guy died a prisoner of the Aragonese faction
>in Sicily sometime around 1291.
>
>5. A daughter, b. while her parents were living in Gascony between 1248
>and 1251; d. an infant, and buried in the Dominican priory in Bordeaux.
>Her parents paid for construction of the friars' dormitory in her memory.
>
>6. Richard, whom Maddicott identifies with the child known to have been b. at
>Kenilworth Castle in 1252. He was allowed to leave England with his mother
>late in 1265; she meant to send him to Simon's relative the count of Bigorre
>in Gascony, but Richard vanishes from the records after 1266. Maddicott
>surmises that he went to Gascony but died there around 1266. He was unmarried.
>
>7. Eleanor, b. ca 1258 according to Maddicott; before 1265 her father
>betrothed her to Llywelyn "the last," prince of North Wales. She was raised in
>France, and when attempting to reach Wales by sea with her brother Amaury she
>was taken prisoner in 1275 and detained in the household of Queen Eleanor of
>Castile until Edward, having defeated Llywelyn in a brief campaign in the
>summer of 1277, allowed the Welsh marriage to go ahead a few months later. As
>is well known, Eleanor de Montfort died in childbirth in 1282 after bearing her
>only child Gwenllian, who was consigned to the nunnery at Sempringham after
>Edward I conquered Wales in 1284. Gwenllian died, of course unmarried, on 7
>June 1337, aged 55. It used to be supposed that she was deliberately kept
>ignorant of her parentage, but a letter from her in her adulthood exists,
>complaining to the then-Chancellor of England that a pension assigned her by
>her kinsman Edward I was in arrears.
>
>John Parsons
William Addams Reitwiesner
wr...@erols.com
"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc."