Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/291

 changes of custody, they were put under Ralf's charge again in 1220, and it seems that Henry III afterwards actually granted them to him and his heirs in fee. In vain did Simon's eldest son, Almeric, appeal against this exclusion from the heritage of his English grandmother. At last he proposed to transfer his claim upon it to his only surviving brother Simon, in exchange for Simon's share in their continental patrimony.

Simon V of Montfort seems to have been the third son of Simon IV (Bibl. de l'Ecole des Chartes, xxxiv. 49). He was probably born about 1208. He is first named in a charter of his father's in 1217. In 1229, having somehow incurred the wrath of the queen-regent of France (, Rer. Gall. Scriptt'. xx. 584;, Engl. Hist. Soc., p. 226), he was glad to accept his brother's suggestion of trying his fortune beyond the sea. "Hereupon," he says himself, "I went to England, and besought my lord the king that he would restore my father's heritage unto me." He carried a letter from Almeric, entreating the king to restore the lands either to the writer or to the bearer. "But he answered that he could not do so, because he had given them to the Earl of Chester and his heirs by a charter. So I returned without finding grace." Henry, however, held out hopes of ultimate restitution, and offered the claimant a yearly pension of four hundred marks meanwhile, on condition of entering his service in England or elsewhere. This proposal was accepted by Simon after his return" to Normandy, and ratified by the king on 8 April 1230. "In that year the king," continues Simon, "crossed into Brittany, and the Earl of Chester with him; and I went to the Earl, and begged him to help me to get back my heritage. He consented, and next August took me with him to England, and besought the king to receive my homage for my patrimony, to which, as he said, I had more right than he; and he quit-claimed to the king all that the king had given him therein; and the king received my homage, and gave me back my lands." On 13 Aug. 1231 Henry ordered that seisin should be given to Simon of all the lands which his father had held, "and which belong to him by hereditary right."

The one extant portrait of Simon of Montfort dates from the year of his adoption as an Englishman. In a window of Chartres Cathedral he is painted as a young knight, on horseback, with banner and shield, while from beneath the raised vizor a face with marked features and large prominent eyes looks out with an expression which makes one feel that the likeness, though rude, must be genuine. Several years passed before his position in England was secured. Even after a second renunciation from Almeric, Simon neither assumed the title of Earl of Leicester, nor was it given to him in official documents. Not only had a large share of the Leicester property passed away to Amicia's younger sister, the Countess of Winchester, but what remained of it had, as Simon declared, suffered so much "destruction of wood and other great damages done by divers people to whom the king had given it in charge," that it was quite inadequate to support the rank and dignity of an earl. A license granted by Henry III in June 1232 to "our trusty and well-beloved Simon of Montfort" to "keep in his own hands or bestow at his will any escheats of land held by Normans of his fee in England, which may hereafter fall in, until our lands of England and Normandy shall be one again" may have helped him a little. In April 1234 he seems to have contemplated buying back from his brother his share of the Montfort patrimony. In a list of nobles present at a parliament at Westminster, 12 Oct. 1234, "Simon of Montfort" appears not among the earls, but next after, them (Appendix to, ed. Twiss, ii. 608). On 20 Jan. 1236 he officiated as grand seneschal at the queen's coronation, despite a protest from the Earl of Norfolk, Roger Bigod, the office of seneschal having long been in dispute between the Earls of Norfolk and of Leicester. On 28 Jan. 1237, at Westminster, "Simon of Montfort" again appears, immediately after the earls, as witness to the king's promise to observe the charters. He was still with the king at Westminster on 24 March (Munimenta Gildhalloe, ii. 669), and again on 3 Aug. (, Lettres de Hois, i. 52). In September he witnessed the treaty at York between Henry and the king of Scots." This time his name, though still without' a title, precedes that of the Earl of Pembroke, who stands last among the English earls. Simon was now seeking the hand of the widowed Countess of Flanders, but this project, like an earlier one for his marriage with another middle-aged widow, the Countess of Boulogne, was frustrated by the king" of France, who looked upon it as part of a dangerous political scheme ( of TroisFontaines, Rer. Gall. Scriptt. xxi. 619; cf. Layettes du Tresor des Chartes, ii. 336-7). A far higher match was in store for Simon. Henry III had now taken him into his closest confidence. Suspected in France on account of his relations with England, Simon was no less suspected and disliked by the English barons, as being one of the three counsellors 