Grace and firm peace

#OTD in 1273, Edward I tried to make peace with the family of the man who had led a revolution against his father. It didn’t last.

Edward dispatched a letter to the chancellor of England announcing his decision to forgive Countess Eleanor de Montfort. She was the widow of his godfather, the famous Earl Simon, killed at Evesham in 1265.

Below is a translation of the letter, by Rich Price:

‘Edward, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, to his beloved cleric and chancellor, Walter de Merton, greeting. Whereas we, at the instance of the most serene prince and our dearest kinsman, Philippe, by the grace of God illustrious king of France, have withdrawn from Eleanor, countess of Leicester, all our indignation and rancour of spirit which we have conceived towards her on the occasion of the disturbance formerly obtaining in our kingdom, and we have admitted her to our grace and firm peace – as long as she should herself well and faithfully towards us and our fideles – and we have conceded to her that through her attorneys she may pursue her right, if, according to the customs of our realm, it should hold in these matters which she claims against us or others of our realm, we command you that, admitting that same countess to this concession of grace in this way, you should cause full justice in the foregoing to be done to her attorneys in her name. Given at Melun-sur-Seine, the 10th day of August.’

Edward had already attempted a reconciliation with the Montforts in 1271. That had ended disastrously when his cousin Henry of Almain was murdered by Eleanor’s sons in the church at Viterbo in Italy.

This second attempt at reconciliation did not last either.

Countess Eleanor continued to pursue the marriage alliance between her daughter, Eleanor, and Prince Llywelyn of Wales, contracted back in 1265. She and her sons, Simon junior and Guy, also colluded with Llywelyn to plant Nicholas Waltham as a spy at the English court.

England remained politically fragile. Edward was a new king, the wounds of the civil war were still recent, and another serious confrontation could potentially have plunged the kingdom into conflict again – a situation the Montforts and Llywelyn might have been able to exploit.

This isn’t a story of goodies and baddies. All these people were political players, manoeuvring for advantage and testing what they could get away with.

In the years that followed, Edward ultimately broke the Montfort-Llywelyn alliance.