THE DISINHERITED IN ENGLAND 1265-1267

“In this year were disinherited many of the nobles of England, barons, knights and civilians.”

— the Annals of Winchester

Edward was quick to exploit the result of Evesham. Immediately after the battle, his first move was to go north and re-establish his authority at Chester. From there he sent out letters designed to enforce the security of his father’s broken realm. Earl Warrenne was empowered to receive the surrender of the Cinque Ports, stamp out piracy in the Channel and control the number of foreigners coming into England. Edward also had letters drafted offering terms to the rebel garrison at Kenilworth. On his return from Chester he induced the surrender of the garrisons at Wallingford and Berkhamsted, as well as offering peace terms to at least four individual rebels. Otherwise Edward was not so conciliatory, and appears to have gone along with the harsh measures taken against the rebels after Evesham.

The loss of so many prominent Montfortians at the battle, killed or captured, left the remainder bewildered and leaderless. In the weeks afterwards one stronghold after another surrendered to crown forces. The surrenders of Wallingford and Berkhamsted were quickly followed by Windsor, Odiham, Rochester and the Tower of London. All these fell before the end of the year, and by January 1266 the important royal castle at the Peak in the high forests of Derbyshire was also back in the King’s hands. Only two rebel bastions held firm. One, the Cinque Ports, was a confederation of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex – Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich – which effectively controlled the narrowest crossing of the English Channel. Eleanor Montfort, Simon’s widow, was ensconced at Dover Castle, and the sailors of the ports continued to harry royalist shipping in the Channel.

The other major stronghold still in baronial hands was Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. Simon’s son, Simon Montfort the Younger, had retreated here after failing to link up with his father at Evesham. He held several prisoners locked up at Kenilworth including Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King Henry’s younger brother. After witnessing his father’s savage mutilation, Simon might have been tempted to avenge himself on the prisoners. Instead he resisted the urge and made a bargain: in return for his release, Richard agreed to do all he could to defend Simon and his rights.

The seal of Richard of Cornwall

Richard’s release was in vain, for any chance of a moderate solution was already slipping away. Recriminations had begun. Those men who had remained loyal to the king began to seize the lands of dead or defeated rebels, usually by force of arms rather than any legal process. John Eyvill, for instance, the northern baron who would play such a major role in the ensuing revolt, lost his manor of Newark to William Grey and Gargrave in Yorkshire to Peter Bruce. This pattern of violent seizure and dispossession was repeated all over the country. The king, who could ill-afford to risk the loyalty of his followers, did nothing to stop it.

In this atmosphere of greed and hostility towards former rebels, Simon the Younger’s hopes of reaching a settlement were soon dashed. In the parliament held at Winchester on September 11^th 1265, he appeared under safe conduct to negotiate with the king. Simon rejected the terms offered as too harsh, angrily stormed out, and rode straight back to Kenilworth. There he planned a new campaign designed to throw weary, war-torn England into a fresh state of confusion. Meanwhile Henry’s supporters continued to demand that surviving rebels should be hit with severe penalties. The king acquiesced, and on 21^st September the order went out for the lands of all rebels to be surveyed and taken into royal custody.

Parliament was postponed until 13^th October. When it re-opened all living Montfortians were declared formally disinherited, and their forfeited lands shared out among royalists. Henry had been pressured into making a fateful decision, one he would soon have cause to bitterly regret. His brother, Richard of Cornwall, withdrew from court in protest, but Edward stayed. His reasoning is difficult to fathom. The terms he had previously offered to the rebels at Kenilworth and elsewhere showed Edward understood the need for peaceful settlement. Yet he went along with the royalist majority, motivated by greed and revenge. It may be that he was unable to resist the demands of his followers: Roger Mortimer, for one, was said to be ‘greedy for spoils.’ Edward himself was one of the landowners who stood to profit from the confiscations.

For the moment Henry was chiefly concerned with punishing the city of London, which had supported Montfort in the recent wars. In September he summoned the feudal host to Windsor, intending to lay siege to his own capital, but the citizens had already cracked. The mayor, Thomas Fitz-Thomas, led a delegation to Windsor to beg for peace. Henry’s response was to throw the entire delegation, mayor and all, into prison. The king further displayed his royal wrath and indignation by ordering Roger Leyburn, one of his most able captains, to advance on the city. On Monday 5^th October Leyburn marched on London with an army including 64 cavalry, and by the Wednesday had succeeded in storming the Tower.

Henry III

Henry now went to London in person and confiscated the houses of prominent Montfortian citizens. Determined to have his pound of flesh from the Londoners, he permitted them to buy back the privilege of having a council of twenty-four to govern the city. For good measure he also slapped a crushing fine of 20,000 marks on them as punishment for the old council’s misdeeds. In reality the citizens were being made to pay for their disloyalty. In case of future trouble, Henry strengthened the Tower with palisades and chains that had once belonged to the citizens.

Edward was present in the capital with his father, and accepted his share of the plunder. In October some of his closest supporters were rewarded with grants of confiscated land, and he was given custody of the mayor, as well as other important prisoners. Those of his friends who benefited included Warin de Bassingburne, Roger Leyburn, Hamo Lestrange and John Vaux, as well as Grimbald Pauncefoot, the turncoat who had yielded Gloucester. Another beneficiary was Otto de Grandison, a Savoyard knight who would go on to enjoy a long and distinguished career in royal service. Edward may have been driven by his long-standing feud with the Londoners, who had insulted his mother on the Thames and fought him at Lewes.

The almighty power of the Church now swung its weight behind Henry. At the end of October the papal legate, Ottobon, arrived in England with the Queen, Eleanor of Provence, who had been abroad raising mercenaries to aid her husband. Ottobon was sent by the papacy to restore peace in England and order to the church, which meant punishing those high clergymen who had supported Simon Montfort. He summoned an ecclesiastical council to meet in London on 1^st December, where proceedings were begun against four bishops. These, the bishops of London, Lincoln, Winchester and Chichester, were eventually suspended from office and ordered to appear at the papal court. These were powerful men with large dioceses in central and southern England. Their removal greatly weakened the rebel cause.

Isle of Axholme

While Ottobon was busy prosecuting the Montfortian bishops, Simon the Younger put his plan into effect. In mid-November he left Kenilworth and marched north to occupy the Isle of Axholme, a densely wooded area of marshland among the fens by the lower Trent. This dreary, waterlogged region, similar to the Isle of Ely in Cambridgeshire, was easily defensible and a perfect spot to create a new rebel headquarters. It could also be used as a base to launch destructive raids on the surrounding countryside, spreading terror and confusion as well as diverting royal forces from Kenilworth.

The size of Simon’s garrison is unknown, but many of those rebel knights and barons who flocked to join him are named. The annalist Thomas Wykes mentions John Eyvill and Baldwin Wake, a Lincolnshire knight and powerful baron who had escaped royal custody, while a slightly later Patent Rolls entry lists Robert Eyvill (John’s younger brother), Richard le Constable, Walter Useflet, Henry son of Coneyn, William Bascy, Humphey Velly and Osbert Cornbure. Eight esquires of John Eyvill’s household are also named, along with servants, horses, harness and other goods.

Axholme was not the only centre of resistance. In Nottinghamshire another band of rebels was cited in two writs from November 1265, accused of plundering the goods and chattels of local landowners. They included Nicholas Eyvill, John’s cousin from Caunton inside the northern part of Sherwood Forest. Even at this early stage the Eyvill family were prominent among the disinherited. Other Montfortian rebels were holed up inside the Weald forest in Kent and Sussex (see next chapter).

King Henry could not afford to let the flames of revolt in the midlands spread, and sent Edward to deal with the rebel garrisons inside Kenilworth and Axholme. Edward identified Axholme as the main threat. He left one part of his force under Osbert Giffard to besiege Kenilworth, while he marched northwards into the fens, collecting reinforcements from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire as he went. Simon the Younger and his men stayed inside the isle, refusing to give battle, so Edward had wooden bridges constructed around the rebel camp. Surrounded and outnumbered, the rebels offered terms. Edward was prepared to be conciliatory, and a truce was agreed at a place called Bickerdyke or Bycarr’s Dyke, near Haxey in Axholme. Most of the rebels were offered life, limb and liberty, on condition they departed the isle at once and submitted to the king’s judgement in parliament at Easter. The exception was Simon, who was ordered to face trial at Northampton in January.

All the rebels, save Simon, found sureties for their appearance in court before the king at Easter. In January Simon himself duly appeared for his trial at Northampton, where he was required to abjure (leave) the realm, and do nothing to stir up trouble for England while he was abroad. In exchange he would be given a yearly pension from the estates that had once belonged to his father. After the trial he was handed over to Edward’s custody and taken to London, from there to be deported. These were generous terms, considering the trouble Simon had caused, but he was not inclined to trust his keepers. Once in London he began to fear treachery, and that his guards meant to murder him. Somehow he escaped custody and fled to the rebel-held Cinque Ports, from where he took ship to France.

Despite the embarrassment of losing their captive, the royalists may not have been too sorry to see him go. Simon was not the commanding figure his father had been, and had few allies on the continent. In addition, by breaking the terms of custody he forfeited any right to the annual revenue from his father’s estates. Yet the Montfort clan still had a presence in England: Simon’s brother, Guy, who had been wounded and captured at Evesham, was held prisoner at Windsor. He later escaped to join Simon in France. Their mother Eleanor held out stubbornly at Dover Castle, where her younger sons, Amaury and Richard, were also present.

Not for long. Edward, now the undoubted master of his father’s military forces, switched his attention to reducing the rebel strongholds on the south coast.

The Cinque Ports

Edward’s lieutenant, Roger Leyburn, had already been in action against Montfortians lurking inside the Weald. This was the forest covering swathes of Kent and Sussex, another ideal refuge for stubborn bands of rebels and outlaws.

Leyburn went about his difficult task with methodical efficiency. On the 4^th of November he marched south-west from Canterbury, plunging deep into the woods, and spent a week-long campaign advancing in a circular route through the High Weald. No details survive of the actual fighting, though afterwards Leyburn felt it necessary to leave behind a strong guard of two hundred archers, ‘to watch for thieves and ambushers in the woods in those parts, and to keep the peace of the lord king.’ Each archer received payment of 3d (old pennies or 1½p) a day, and they patrolled the Weald for 46 days after Leyburn’s departure.

While Leyburn was busy in the Weald, Edward came south from his success at Axholme to deal with the rebel garrison at Dover Castle. Dover was a mighty fortress, but the problem of reducing it was solved for him: at the end of October certain royalist prisoners held inside the keep broke out and overpowered their warders. With the keep in royalist hands, and Edward’s army massed outside, Eleanor was forced to come to terms. She and her sons Amaury and Richard agreed to abjure the realm, while twenty-two members of her household were pardoned. On 28^th October she left England for the last time.

With Dover retaken, Edward was now free to deal with the Cinque Ports, where rebel forces were concentrated at Sandwich and Winchelsea. An example of the kind of piracy the rebels at these ports exercised is given in an entry from 11^th April 1266:

‘Emery de Galernia and William de Lupo, merchants of St. Jean d’Angely, have shown the king that John Sampsom and Thomas le Lung, avowing themselves by the barons of Winchelesa (in the time of the disturbance in the realm), plundered them on the coast of Brittany of 121 tuns of wine of the value of 600 marks, and because the said merchants in the disturbance were not hurtful to him or his realm and remained constant in their fealty to the king and Edward his son, and the said Thomas and John are vagabonds wandering from place to place whereby they cannot be found or brought to justice; he commands all bailiffs and others that if any goods of the said malefactors can be found in their bailiwick, they are to arrest these until the said malefactors have satisfied the said merchants according to law and merchant custom.’

Roger Leyburn was recalled from London and ordered to attack Sandwich, while Edward prepared to launch an assault upon Winchelsea. On 22^nd November, before they could begin operations, a rebel fleet sacked and burned Portsmouth, while other ships continued to disrupt trade between England and the continent. The reduction of the Cinque Ports was now a matter of urgency, but Edward and his lieutenant, Leyburn, refused to be hurried. They continued to build up their forces, and on 1^st January a royalist fleet of twenty galleys from Yarmouth, crewed by 800 men, was instructed to sink and burn the fleet that had razed Portsmouth.

On 15^th January Leyburn’s siege engines commenced their bombardment of Sandwich. The rebels must have had fired back with their own engines, for afterwards a knight named Imbert Montferrat was paid to repair Leyburn’s damaged artillery. One engine called Ursus (Bear) was credited with causing the most damage to the rebel defences, and used again the following year in the siege of Kenilworth. Leyburn followed up his bombardment with a bloody frontal assault, losing 39 horses and 36 grooms, along with probable other casualties, before the port was finally stormed.

Leyburn was now instructed to march on Hastings (which must have capitulated) to strengthen the defences of the port, while Edward prepared a combined land and sea assault on Winchelsea.Of all the rebel ports, Winchelsea seems to have had the largest garrison, commanded by a notorious pirate named Henry Pethun. Edward’s preparations for the assault were meticulous, and included the recruitment of a fleet levied from the towns of Yarmouth, Lynn, Ipswich, Orford, Blakeney and Gosford. Leyburn was recalled, and brought with him 577 archers on a standard wage of 3d per day. These men appear to have been a mixture of Welsh mercenaries and bowmen drawn from the Weald. Leyburn’s son, William, was sent back with some of his father’s troops to Sandwich to suppress another revolt in the town.

The combined attack on Winchelsea, launched on the 24^th, was even bloodier than the fight at Sandwich. It certainly made an impression on chroniclers. The Annals of Waverley said that many of the defenders perished, while others tried to escape by sea, but were ‘miserably drowned.’ The Flores remarked that much ‘guilty blood’ was shed by Edward’s troops as they forced their way into the town:

‘The citizens of Winchelsea were the only persons who endeavoured to resist him; but Edward took their town by some assaults, and at their entrance much guilty blood was shed, but he spared the multitude, and ordered his men for the future not to busy themselves about plunder like pirates. And by this conduct, great tranquillity was spread over that sea.’

There is some evidence for casualties suffered by the defenders of Winchelsea. The parson of Middleton in Sussex, Master John Stokes, was killed during the assault and his chattels later granted to Luke Vyenna, a yeoman of the Earl of Gloucester. After the town had capitulated, the heirs of those slain in the fighting were permitted to inherit their property, as though they were the heirs of loyal subjects instead of rebels. This conciliatory act was probably instigated by Edward, who personally took charge of the coasts and overseas trade. The king appointed him constable of Dover Castle and warden of the Cinque Ports, which gave Edward control over all foreign merchants: no trade or stay was possible without his licence. Hence, from being the enemy of the barons of the ports, he became their protector and benefactor.

Leyburn’s account rolls show he claimed £140 for horses killed in the attack on Winchelsea, though no figures are given for casualties suffered by his men. According to Waverley, Henry Pethun was captured and brought before Edward, who ordered him to be hanged. Gilbert Clare, Earl of Gloucester, stepped forward and asked for the pirate to be spared. Such a merciful example, Clare argued, would persuade others to come into the king’s peace. The story sounds fanciful, but is confirmed by an official entry in the Patent Rolls which describes Pethun taken into royal custody, ‘safely and honourably, until the peace in the realm be better assured.’

Edward later had cause to regret his clemency. Pethun must have escaped custody (or possibly released by Gloucester who by now was in rebellion) for in June 1267 an order went out to the ‘barons and good men’ of Winchelsea, Hythe and Rye to defend their coasts against ‘Henry Pethun, the king’s enemy and other accomplices’ who were holding out on the Isles of Wight and Portland and other places. Pethun and his comrades were causing so much havoc in the Channel it was decreed, with the agreement of merchants, that the Cinque Ports should be rewarded for keeping order via a tax of 40 shillings on every laden ship and 20 shillings on every empty vessel arriving or leaving the country. Pethun’s eventual fate is unrecorded.

Leyburn’s work in the south was not done. After a break in activity in March and April, he was despatched in May to clear out the rebels who had gathered in Essex. Essex was dangerously close to London, where resentment against the king’s authority still simmered. Leyburn had been stationed in the capital to guard against unrest, and after his departure King Henry thought it prudent to send 200 archers to reinforce the city garrison. The account rolls give precise figures for the size of Leyburn’s army. In total he took with him 36 knights, seven royal sergeants at arms, seven royal crossbowmen, seven royal esquires, two scouts and 500 Welsh archers. The Welsh seem to have been regarded as prize troops: grouped in companies of 100, they were paid 3d a day and provided with special tunics at a total cost of £30. They were also paid for travelling expenses.

As usual, the dry expense accounts give few details of the actual fighting. It must have been grim work, flushing desperate bands of rebels out of the Essex forests. The household expenses show Leyburn later claiming £100 for horses slain during the Essex campaign, though losses among his soldiers are not given. The effectiveness of the campaign is difficult to judge. Men of Essex were among rebels who came into the king’s peace in December 1266, and there is no hint that London was in any danger after May. These suggest that Leyburn had at least succeeded in curbing the activities of rebels in Essex.

Aided by his capable lieutenant, Edward was generally successful in stamping out resistance on the south coast. The key fortress of Dover Castle was again in royalist hands, Eleanor Montfort and her sons (save Guy, a prisoner) were out of the country, and the Cinque Ports reduced after an efficient military campaign. Edward’s only mistake was to spare the life of Henry Pethun, who went on to cause further trouble. In this he may have been influenced by ill-placed trust in Gloucester.

Elsewhere the revolt of the disinherited was only just flaring into life. With the defeat and exile of the Montforts, particularly Simon the Younger, there was a vacuum in rebel leadership. New men stepped forward to fill the gap at the top, and new centres of revolt arose all over the kingdom. By the spring of 1266, London and the south were under a measure of royal control, but fresh trouble was brewing in the north.

The leader of the northern rebels was Edward’s old foe, Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby. Ferrers had been languishing in the Tower since December 1264, where he lay in helpless confinement while Simon Montfort seized his lands in Chester and Derbyshire. He played no part in the Battle of Evesham, and was shortly afterwards released from custody.

Earl Simon’s efforts to seize Ferrers’ lands had met with resistance from the imprisoned earl’s followers. In February Nicholas de Hastings, a king’s clerk to whom the lands were committed, was captured by ‘certain evildoers’, and had to be replaced by Thomas le Blund. Throughout his career, despite his rashness and poor decision-making, Ferrers never lost the staunch loyalty of his followers. These ‘Men of Ferrers’, as they were termed, caused great damage and loss of life whenever their lord was imprisoned.

After his release Ferrers immediately joined in the pillaging of the disinherited. A commission dated 21^st September reveals the earl and his men were actively seizing lands from Montfort’s defeated supporters. On 5^th December he was officially forgiven for all previous trespasses committed against King Henry or his son Edward, including the throwing down of castles. Furthermore, in return for a golden cup studded with precious stones and the sum of 1,500 marks, he was guaranteed protection against disinheritance. Apart from the pardon, there was no mandate for the return of Ferrers’ lands, but on 18^th January 1266 he granted the manor and advowson of the church of Bingham to one Ralph, son of Ralph Bugge, which suggest that his lands had been returned. The grant was confirmed by Edward, which seems odd considering the history of antipathy between the two noblemen. This can perhaps be taken as an example of Edward’s preference for conciliation with former rebels, even though he and his supporters profited from disinheritance.

Ferrers’ redemption, in light of his past record and hostility towards Edward, was remarkable. He may have owed his good fortune to the influence of his wife, the king’s niece. Having got himself out of trouble, he would have been extremely unwise to go back into rebellion. Yet this is exactly what Ferrers did. Five months after regaining his lands and position, he threw in his lot with the disinherited gathering in the north.

Why he did so is a mystery. Powicke simply puts it down to the earl’s gross greed and stupidity. It could be Ferrers sympathised with the plight of the disinherited, but it was typical of the man to resort to violence before politics. As the most high-ranking of the rebels in arms against the king, he naturally assumed leadership of the northern rebellion. His second-in-command was John Eyvill, who had previously submitted to Edward at the Mise of Bycarr’s Dyke. Along with many of his comrades, Eyvill chose to ignore the peace terms of the Mise and continue his rebellion.