Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/296

 sarcasm, "Go back to Gascony, thou lover and maker of strife, and reap its reward like thy father before thee," was met by the quiet reply : "Gladly will I go; nor do I think to return till I have made thine enemies thy footstool, ungrateful though thou be." Ten years later Henry asserted that he had ordered Simon to follow him to Windsor, and that Simon had disobeyed the order and gone straight to France without his knowledge; Simon, however, declared that he had set out "from Windsor." Landing at Boulogne on 13 June, he learned that Gaston of Beam, despite the truce, was besieging the citadel of La Reole; he collected troops in France and hurried to the rescue. Meanwhile his accusers had hastened home and gathered forces to meet him; in the first battle he was victorious; soon afterwards he was blockaded in Montauban, and escaped with some difficulty. While revictualling La Reole he was overtaken by two; royal commissioners with letters from the king bidding him respect the truce; he retorted that he could not keep a truce which the other party had broken. The commissioners then handed him another letter whereby he was removed from his office. He answered that the king was acting "wilfully, not in reason," and that the office which had been entrusted to him "by the counsel of the wise men" he would not give up till the seven years were expired; and therewith he went off to besiege another rebel castle. The English parliament in October utterly refused to sanction his deposition; Henry next oifered to buy him out with seven thousand marks down and a promise to pay all his Gascon debts. Simon yielded, made a formal resignation of his office, 29 Sept. 1252, and withdrew into France. There the nobles, "knowing his constancy and strength of character," pressed him to accept the office of seneschal of the kingdom, and with it a foremost place in the council of regency, left headless by the death of the queen-mother. Simon refused; "he would not seem a deserter."

Gascony had risen more madly than ever as soon as his back was turned, and when Henry arrived there in August 1253 the first thing he did was to call Simon to his aid. Simon at first took no notice; but a second appeal in October brought him back, sick though he was, at the head of his picked band of knights, ready to forgive and help his brother-in-law once again. The result was a gradual subsidence of the revolt; Simon spent Christmas with the king, and at Easter 1254 was back in London, enlightening the English parliament as to the state of things in Gascony and the meaning of the royal demands for money.

On 25 Aug. Henry sent Earl Simon into Scotland, "entrusting him with a secret to reveal to the Scottish king." On 38 May 1255 Simon was coupled with Peter of Savoy on a mission to France for a renewal of the truce, which was obtained in June. On 16 Aug. 1256 he was with the king at Woodstock; and in the same year he was one of four noble laymen whom the king appointed as being "learned and skilful in the laws of the land, and mighty men, whom neither fear nor favour could corrupt" to inquire into a charge against the sheriff of Northampton which had baffled the sagacity of the itinerant judges. In February 1257 Henry proposed to send Simon, with another envoy, to treat for peace with France. Simon seems to have been there when ordered off in June on a further errand, to expedite arrangements with the pope for Edmund's establishment as king of Sicily [see under ]. Of the four envoys originally named for this mission, however, only one went, and that one was not the Earl of Leicester. He remained in France, but met with no success in his negotiations, and returned in February 1258.

Sometime in 1257 hot words had passed between Simon and the king's half-brother, William of Valence. William had encroached on Simon's land; Simon remonstrated before the council; William met the remonstrance by calling him traitor; and the strife would have passed from words to blows had not the king thrown himself between them. The quarrel broke out again in the Hoketide parliament of 1258. William repeated his insult; Simon retorted, "No, no, William! I am neither traitor nor traitor's son; my father was not like yours;" and again Henry had to separate them. Their quarrel was only a part of the great national quarrel which occupied the whole session (9 April-5 May 1258), the quarrel of the English people, who were soon to recognize Simon as their champion against the king and his Poitevin favourites, of whom William was the chief. On 12 April Simon and six other nobles banded themselves together in a sworn league "to help one another, ourselves, and our men against all folk, doing right and obtaining right, as much as we can, without wronging any man, and saving our faith to the king." On 2 May Henry sanctioned the appointment of twenty-four commissioners twelve of his own council and twelve chosen by the barons to draw up a scheme of administrative reform. One of the latter was Simon of Montfort. On 8 May five nobles, of whom Simon was