Gwenllian

The fate of the remains of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, has long been a mystery. Since his death at the battle of Evesham in 1265, one foot of the dismembered corpse has been confidently traced to Alnwick abbey in Northumberland, from where it disappeared, probably at the Reformation. A skull displayed in the Almonry Museum and Heritage Centre at Evesham may belong to a member of the Montfort family. Stories abound, of secret tunnels under the River Avon, and of remains collected by Montfort’s widow and interred in St Mary’s abbey, Kenilworth. In this booklet Dr Cox reviews the evidence for an alternative last resting place of Earl Simon’s bones, and outlines the circumstances under which they might be recovered and identified. A challenge thus awaits us to provide for Simon de Montfort the discovery and preservation accorded to the last Plantagenet king of England, Richard III.

Simon de Montfort was a man in pursuit of an elusive dream, a figure of paradox even today. Medieval chroniclers say that he was handsome, intelligent, fair-minded and able, but his enemies found him arrogant, cold and driven by ambition alone. His faith led him to take up the Crusader’s cross and, even a century after his death, men venerated him as a saint. Yet he scandalised the pious by marrying a young widow sworn to a holy oath of chastity. He was a Frenchman who came to symbolise English nationalism. Landless and without influence he talked a king into granting him and earldom then led a rebellion against his benefactor. He was brutally outspoken, once telling the same king that he belonged in a mad-house, and totally uncompromising. He alienated his allies yet men would have followed him to Hell. In an age of fixed truth he was unafraid of change. His downfall was sudden, dramatic and tragic. Patrick Rooke has written an enlightening summary of a man who was adventurer, idealist and enigma, a man of his times in an age of conflict, betrayal, human frailty, broken dreams, imperishable hopes and enduring legends.