The Angevins, King John and the Magna Carta

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Centuries of constant British nationalistic obfuscation  have made much of Europe’s medieval history into a confusing mess. The story of the Magna Carta is one such example. What follows is the actual story, which is fascinating but differs radically from the one that is most commonly told. Now, placing events within context makes this story a long one but revealing this context also makes it finally clear, simple and comprehensible. And if you find any historical inaccuracies please let me know … especially you, Claire, you amazing historian you! For simplicity's sake, most of the links I've placed lead to Wikipedia (even when its entries perpetuate common errors).

In any case, I am fairly certain that many people will be stunned by the text that follows.

NC Wyeth

These events take place during the High Middle Ages. It is a time of chivalry, knights, castles and crusades, when war was an almost permanent state of affairs, national borders mattered less than feudal ones and when the ruling caste of England (the royals and the nobility) were French.

What!?! Really? Well ... yes (see post scriptum).

And back home in France, an Angevin king of England was regarded as just another nobleman, with the English kingdom constituting only a part of his domain, for nearly all of which the king of France was "by right of sovereignty" his feudal lord. In other words, for most of their domain, the kings of England were subjects (vassals) of the kings of France.

"Angevin Empire" of the late-12th/early-13th century
Many maps forget to indicate that most this "Empire" actually belonged to the French crown.
In return for fealty, the Angevins were granted use of this land but considered tenants.
It was the French monarch who was sovereign over it.

Now, as William II, named "the Conqueror" for invading England in 1066, had been the Duke of Normandy, in most English histories, you'll be told that at the time and henceforth the rulers of England were "Normans" or even better, "Anglo-Normans" and they thus naturally spoke the "Anglo-Norman language".

Interestingly however, if you actually read something written in "Anglo-Norman", you'll discover something rather peculiar: Any Frenchman today can perfectly comprehend "Anglo-Norman" without even pausing ... while an Englishman couldn't understand it to save his life! But how can that be? Well, it turns out that "Anglo-Norman" is not in the least English, nor is it specifically "Norman". It's instead quite simply good old French, then also known as the "langue d'oïl"!

The Anglo-Norman Online Hub explains:

"Anglo-Norman or, more accurately, Anglo-French, is the form of French used in Britain between 1066 and the middle of the fifteenth century. The term ‘Anglo-Norman’ harks back to the time when the language was regarded as being the regional dialect of the Norman invaders who came across the Channel with William the Conqueror [the duke of Normandy]. Yet when account is taken of the heterogeneous composition of William’s army, which included many men from different regions of France, together with the fact that over the following three centuries the language must have been used in Britain by all manner of people from dissimilar ethnic backgrounds and whose linguistic competence, to judge by the writings which have survived, may be readily seen to have varied from a native mastery of French down to an elementary acquaintance with it, the generic term ‘Anglo-French’, the French of England, perhaps reflects the reality of the situation better than the more restrictive ‘Anglo-Norman’."

It has since been updated to read:

"Anglo-Norman is the name usually given to the kind of French brought over to England by the conquerors in 1066, then later exported to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Initially it shared most of its vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation with the medieval French of the mainland. Later, it began to develop characteristics of its own.

The Anglo-Norman On Line Hub

Now, when reading your typical English-language history book, figuring out that "Anglo-Norman" is actually "French" almost requires the perspicacity of Sherlock Holmes'. But otherwise, you just need to e.g. examine the designation "Angevin", which is used to describe the royal protagonists of this story, to get a correct picture. "Angevin" is not some family name (nor, like Capetien, based on one). "Angevin" is actually a geographical term, one that means "from Anjou", which is located south-west of Paris. Geoffrey V, the Count of Anjou, whose nickname "Plantagenêt" was also later used to refer to the Angevin dynasty, actually went to war against and defeated the Normans. He was about as "Norman" as William the conqueror was "English". In other words: not at all. Nonetheless, in many histories, the Angevins, together with any other French noblemen ruling England at the time, hailing from anywhere in France, are commonly referred to as "Norman", "Anglo-Norman" or even "English".

Of course, for these events to make sense we must remember that, whether later British nationalists liked it or not, Richard "the Lionhearted" for example, the quintessential "King of England" of Hollywood films, was an Angevin Frenchman. He spoke French and not one word of English. And he ruled England as a colony, from Aquitaine in the south-west of France (where he lived).

King Richard I "Coeur de Lion" of England

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So anyway, our story starts in April 1202 when the King of France, Philippe II "Augustus", summons John, the king of England, to appear before him in Paris and answer for committing an injustice upon one of his subjects. This, by the way, is something that can only make sense once one knows that John was a vassal of the King of France.

King Philippe II "Augustus" of France
See monk Rigord's "Deeds of Philip Augustus"

King John "Sanz Terre" ("Lackland") of England

The injustice John had to answer for was this:

In 1200, a twelve year old girl, Isabelle, the soon to be Comtesse d' Angoulême and heiress of the Angoulême fortune, was about to get married to Hugues IX , the Count of La Marche, a vassal of John's.

The thirty-something John, king of England, is an invited guest. But instead of witnessing the event, he ... kidnaps the child bride to be! He takes her to Bordeaux and, on August 24, has the little girl marry him instead. He had repudiated his wife and cousin, Isabel of Gloucester a year earlier (though he kept her lands).

As she was the fiancée of his vassal, this was considered to be bad form, creating a bit of a stir, or rather ... a huge scandal!

De Lusignan's family went to their and John's overlord, Philippe Augustus of France and were like "WTF?". So the French king asked John to somehow deal with this. He pressed John to come to some agreement with them, possibly by paying some damages/compensation to the De Lusignan family. But this was to no avail. John kept ignoring the king of France.

Finally the French monarch "summoned" John, requiring him to, officially this time, answer for the injustice committed against his liegeman: As a vassal to the French king, in addition to giving troops and to paying feudal dues, John was bound by oath to obey summonses.

John, however, was both a king in his own right and a very rich one at that. The Anjevin "empire", brought in such wealth that the counts of Anjou, who also held the kingdom of England, had grown to become the richest men of Western Europe, by far richer than their feudal lords, the kings of France. So they grew arrogant and tended to forget their place. John contemptuously chose to ignore the summons of his king.

Not a good move! In times of chivalry this was a rather serious no no. Though perhaps not as rich, the king of France commanded the loyalty and respect of many noblemen. This made France a powerful kingdom. And its King wasn't amused. In punishment, he just placed several of John's fiefs en commise (in confiscation), deposing the ungrateful John of his titles. The king of France then assigned Anjou, Maine and Poitou to the chivalrous, promising and recently knighted Angevin teenager Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, born in Nantes in 1187, the son of Geoffrey II, the fourth son of Henry II (and John's elder brother), and Constance, duchess of Brittany.

"The Vigil" by John Pettie
Preceding the conferment of knighthood, the candidate passed the night in prayer until sunrise.

Though officially stripped of his titles and evicted, John wasn't letting go. To establish his authority, and to support Arthur, the king of France had to retake possession of his fortified medieval castles by force of arms, not an easy task. And so they all got to engage in the favourite pastime of the aristocracy of the times: gruesomely magnificent medieval sieges and battles! Philip's armies overran the north-east and marched towards Normandy, while Arthur campaigned in Poitou.

"The king of the French summoned John, king of England, as his liegeman, holding from him the counties of Poitou and Anjou and the duchy of Aquitaine, to come two weeks after Easter to Paris to give a satisfactory answer to the charges which Philip made against him. But since the king of England, instead of coming in person on the day indicated, did not even send a satisfactory reply, the king of the French, with the advice of his princes and barons, assembled an army, entered Normandy, and took the little fort of Boutavant, which he destroyed. Orgueil, Mortemer, and all the land which Hugh of Gournay held soon fell into his power. At Gournay he made Arthur a knight and delivered to him the county of Brittany, which had fallen to him by hereditary right. He even added the counties of Anjou and of Poitou, which he had acquired by right of arms."
Rigord's "Deeds of Phillip Augustus"

As King Philip Augustus is battling John for Normandy, Arthur with a small force is in Mirebeau assisting Noblemen who had just joined his cause. The year is 1202, they are fighting, among others, the forces of John's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In a daring move, John leaves the fight with Philip and rushes to aid his mother at Mirebeau. There he prevails against Arthur, capturing and imprisoning him.

And then ...

... one day day in April of 1203, John murders his prisoner, the promising teenage knight, Arthur! Ruthless as the period was, this nonetheless stunned everyone. The youth Arthur was John's own nephew, the son of his older brother Geoffrey, the grandson of John's father, king Henry II of England, not to mention the expected son-in-law of the king of France, John's overlord for most of his domains.

More than the kidnapping of Isabelle this act by John would end up significantly changing history, as it would lead to John's virtual exile from France, and then to the Magna Carta and even eventually to the Hundred Years War.

In any case, to secure for himself the Angevin inheritance seems to be the only reason behind John's murder of Arthur:

This was all about succession. John had been the last of King Henry II's sons and "the runt of the Angevin litter". Before he could claim any significant inheritance for himself, succession rules required that all his older brothers die childless.

Henry's first son Willam had died in infancy. His next son, named Henry like his father, was to have the lion's share of the Angevin inheritance (England, Normandy, and Anjou), the second, Richard, was to become Count of Poitou and Aquitaine and the third, Geoffrey was to become the Duke of Brittany. Nothing of any interest was left for John (for which he got the nickname "Sanz-Terre"/"Lackland").

King Henry II "Curt Mantel" of England,
father of Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John
and Arthur's grandfather.

The eldest son, Henry, not yet eighteen years old but reportedly tall, handsome and already commanding, was crowned King of England in 1170, during his father's reign, acquiring the nickname "the Young King". Having the king's son and heir become co-regent during the life of the monarch was sometimes done by the kings of France to assure a gradual and smooth transition of power. But in this particular case it was a mistake. Henry the father was not in the least ready to share authority. He gave Henry the son, "the Young King", no actual power, nor any significant source of revenue. Though, after the coronation, Henry the father had said that he, himself, was "no longer king", this was obviously said in jest, for it turned out that young king found himself in the somewhat ridiculous position of being "King" only in name. His younger brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, had more actual power than he.

"A king without a realm is at a loss for something to do: at such a loss was the noble and gracious Young King"
Jordan Fantosme

"The Young King" repeatedly asked his father to give him a territory to rule, either Normandy, Anjou or England. But he was met with refusal at every turn. Making things even worse, in February of 1173, King Henry II suddenly decided, without consulting him, to bequeath the three most important castles of the Young King's promised inheritance of Anjou (Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau) to his youngest brother, John, a mere child of five at the time, on occasion of his childhood betrothal to Alix (Alice, Alais?) de Maurienne .

The young Henry protested vehemently. The matter devolved into a bitter and protracted source of resentment between them. The old king banned several knights, the young King’s closest friends and allies, from the court "for being a bad influence". He then placed the young king under guard and prevented him from leaving the castle of Chinon where they all lived (none of this is taking place in England). The house-arrest seems to have had everyone gravely concerned. This was in the aftermath of Henry's men having murdered his close friend Thomas Becket, (after he uttered the notorious: "Is there none who will rid me of this turbulent priest?").

In March of 1173, the whole family sought to escape and seek refuge, counsel and protection at the court of the king of France, Louis VII "le Jeune" . The young king Henry managed to slip away and was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey, and then their mother, Eleanor (who apparently disguised herself as a man). She was however caught on the way and held prisoner by Henry.

King Louis VII "le Jeune" of France, as crusader

Louis greeted them generously and treated "the young king" indeed as a king.

Now, when Henry II had originally declared how he proposed to divide the Angevin inheritance among his sons, the king of France had to sign off on basically everything but England, which as a kingdom was independent. Most their titles being granted by the crown of France, Henry, Richard and Geoffrey had all sworn oaths of fealty to the French monarch, which also meant that, as their liege lord, Louis was duty-bound to help them whenever possible. Advised of the situation with king Henry the father, Louis promised to do what he could. And so he did:

"Louis, king of the Franks, held a great council at Paris, at which he and all the principal men of France made oath to the son of the king of England that they would assist him in every way in expelling his father from the kingdom if he should not accede to his wishes: on which he swore to them that he would not make peace with his father, except with their sanction and consent."
Roger of Hoveden (a clerk working for Henry II)

Of course English history book imagine the worse possible motives for this support of the young Henry and his brothers. In reality nearly all the earls and barons of France, England and even Scotland sided with the rebellious sons against the old Henry. Possibly as a result of his ordering Becket's murder, barely anyone trusted the king of England. Surprisingly few sworn knights seemed willing to fight for him.

In response, Henry II of England swore loyalty to and made himself a vassal of the Pope! He thus managed to get himself forgiven for Becket, acquire the support of the whole Catholic church and to have his rebellious sons promptly excommunicated. He furthermore did penance at the Tomb of Becket, a show of humility that allowed him to reacquire some his lost baronial support. But his main weapon was the Angevin fortune. It meant that, in lieu of relying on the loyalty of nobles and knights, he could simply hire mercenaries, something he did on an unprecedented scale. These didn't care what you did as long as they themselves got paid. Seldom if ever of noble birth, they were not burdened by chivalrous ideals. Their tactics were accordingly ig-noble. Though often "militarily" successful, they were universally despised.

During the ensuing conflict known as the Revolt of 1173-4, Henry was indeed successful, defeating all, including knights fighting in the name of the king of France. After thus managing to resist on the field, he gave in to some demands and made peace with his rebellious sons:

"A conference was accordingly held between him and his sons, for the purpose of establishing peace, on the seventh day before the calends of October, being the third day of the week. At this conference, the king, the father, offered to the king, his son, a moiety of the revenues of his demesnes in England, and four fitting castles in the same territory; or, if his son should prefer to remain in Normandy, the king, the father, offered a moiety of the revenues of Normandy, and all the revenues of the lands that were his father’s, the earl of Anjou, and three convenient castles in Normandy, and one fitting castle in Anjou, one fitting castle in Maine, and one fitting castle in Touraine. To his son Richard, also, he offered a moiety of the revenues of Aquitaine, and four fitting castles in the same territory. And to his son Geoffrey he offered all the lands that belonged, by right of inheritance, to the daughter of duke Conan, if he should, with the sanction of our lord the pope, be allowed to marry the above-named lady. The king, the father, also submitted himself entirely to the arbitration of the archbishop of Tarento and the legates of our lord the pope, as to adding to the above as much more of his revenues, and giving the same to his sons, as they should pronounce to be reasonable, reserving to himself the administration of justice and the royal authority."

The young king Henry, the heir-apparent, then demanded that Richard do him homage for Aquitaine. But Richard rejected the demand, challenging thus Henry's authority. In response for the affront the young Henry invaded Aquitaine, attracting to his standard many of Richard's vassals. Their father however, Henry II, marched to Richard's aid.

And then ... Henry "the Young King" suddenly and mysteriously died. It was the year 1183. And that was that. Even though he had been crowned king, his father never actually abdicated to him, so Henry, "The Young King", the most impressive of the Angevin sons, is not even counted in the numerical succession of kings of England. Richard inherited Henry "the Young King"'s titles.

One day, Henry II decides to give Aquitaine to Richard's younger brother John. Richard loved Aquitaine. He considered it his real home. It had been the reason for his fight with his older brother, "The Young King". So he refused to accept his father's new caprice.

And again Richard sought the help of Philip Augustus, the king of France, renewing his homage at Bonmoulins in November 1188. Soon after, the king of France marched in support of Richard. And he defeated king Henry II of England at every battle.

In the final "Treaty of Colombieres" of 1189, Philip demanded the unconditional surrender of Henry, having him "put himself as a conquered enemy, entirely at his mercy, before he would discuss any terms". And the king of England did just that, retook his oaths of loyalty to the king of France, paid the costs of the war and accepted Richard as his heir. Shortly afterwards, Henry II died and his son Richard became king. On his deathbed, Henry asked to be shown the list of those who followed Richard against him. He was horrified to learn that John, for the benefit of whom he fought and suffered defeat, was among them.

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(Here, I must include the important events of Richard's reign, crusades etc): Richard was captured at Vienna on December 20th, 1192 and confined in the castle of Dürenstein on the Danube. He was released in February 1194 after payment of ransom.

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After the lionhearted Richard, next in line for the Angevin titles was John's senior, Geoffrey.

But Geoffrey was killed in a tournament in Paris. However, he left a son: Arthur! And according to the law of primogeniture, because Geoffrey was John's senior, his son Arthur's hereditary rights (which included the British crown) came before John's. Richard had furthermore explicitly stated, more than once, that, unless he, himself, acquired a son, Arthur was his heir.

Succession rules must have seemed very unfair to John. He was one of king Henry II's sons, he must have felt that he should also inherit. And indeed this is how it would have been, had his brother Geoffrey, John's senior, not had a male heir. Nonetheless, that Arthur was before John in the order of succession is quite certain, despite histories with stuff like: "Angevin law favoured Arthur but Norman law favoured John ... etc ". Nonsense! There existed no special legal Angevin-vs-Norman differences in succession. It's pure invention. The law of male primogeniture was as much Norman as it was Angevin. And it would become enshrined in English common law. In today's England, Arthur would immediately, automatically and unquestionably become king of England. Period!

So anyway, in 1199, king Richard died of a wound from a crossbow arrow while besieging the Château de Châlus-Chabrol.

The only thing standing betwenn John and the Angevin titles was Geoffrey's son Arthur, a mere boy. To be so close to the inheritance (and to stop being called "Lackland") but no cigar? John was not going to let that happen!

Previously, when king Richard had been away on crusade, John had attempted to usurp his brother's titles but failed. Upon learning of his death, Lackland (who coincidentally happened to be a guest at Arthur's court in Brittany at the time), went for it again. John with a few attendants immediately departed south for the castle of Chinon where the Angevin treasury was kept. Getting at the vast Angevin fortune was the first and most crucial step to power.

 The Angevin seat, the Château de Chinon in the Loire Valley

The knight who guarded it, Robert de Turnham, handed the keys to the coffers over, after making a show of having John swear that he would execute his brother's will and "preserve inviolate the rightful customs of former times and the just laws of lands and people". John now had the money he needed to gather support and hire a mercenary army. He could now both bribe and threaten.

The nobles of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine had already declared for Arthur, but even in England, though the opposite impression is given in English history books, the preponderance of noblemen expected Arthur to become their king and a considerable number of them would simply refuse to swear fealty to John. So in England, John promised titles and fortune to two ambitious men of fairly humble origins, Geoffrey FitzPeter and Willam Marshall/Guillaume Le Marechal if they helped him gather support for the English throne. When Guillaume accepted, the archbishop of Canterbury exclaimed to him: 'You will never regret anything in your life as much as this'.

The two men called an assembly at Northampton. There, FitzPeter and Marshal, who was generally respected for his jousting ability and courage in battle, plead John's case. More importantly, they made promises of favours. And after all, John was in possession of the Angevin crown fortune, while Arthur ... well ... was not in possession of it. This, more than any argument, was probably what was most helpful in getting the barons to support John.

Thus propped up and with the support of his mother (Arthur's grandmother) and having also claimed that on his deathbed Richard had a change of heart and named him as his successor, John "Lackland" could now realistically claim all of Richard's titles, including the kingdom of England. On Apr 25 of 1199, John first had himself crowned Duke of Normandy at Rouen and then, on the 27th of May 1199, king of England at Westminster. During the ceremony, the embarrassed archbishop had to explain that the English crown could be a matter of proclamation, not necessarily of primogeniture. In any case, these events reportedly received a lukewarm reception and a rather unusual display of force seems to have been thought necessary. Soon after, John gave Geoffrey FitzPeter the earldom of Essex and Guillaume le Marechal, the earldom of Pembroke.

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The influence of Marshal and practical material concerns (John had taken control of the Angevin coffers) is almost certainly why barons in England were convinced to accept John, instead of Arthur, as their king. Surprisingly often, however, English history texts seem to centre on unlikely explanations either involving Arthur being too young (youth had never before nor would ever be a succession issue) or, ever better, on Arthur being and speaking French, not English. The obvious implication is that the English barons preferred an "English" and English-speaking king, rather than a "French" and French-speaking one.

We saw in the introduction that this is absurd. It was not Arthur who spoke French, it was the whole family: John and his siblings, Henry "the Young King", Richard, Geoffrey, Matilda who would become the duchess of Saxony and Bavaria, Eleanor who would become queen of Castile and Toledo and Joan who, before becoming countess of Toulouse would be the queen of Sicilly, and of course their parents, king Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who were both born in France and wed (on May 18, 1152) in the cathedral of Poitiers, also in France.

The Angevin royal family of England were all "French". Being "Kings of England" didn't change that. None of them, not Arthur but neither John nor anyone else, spoke any English, at least not any-more than a later English Viceroy of India would have spoken Hindi. To have a kingdom in addition to one's titles back home was not especially unusual and one might even hold more than one kingdom. And French noblemen held Kingdoms all over. They ruled so many places that, up until the 1800s, French was the common language for all the ruling elites of Europe, regardless of the languages spoken by their subjects. Besides the Angevins, a member of the Capetian dynasty of France might have included any of the following among his titles: (Latin) Emperor of Constantinople, King of Spain, King of Navarre, King of the Two Sicilies, King of Naples, King of Albania, King of Portugal, King of Hungary, King of Poland, King of Etruria, Prince of Achaea, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Duke of Burgundy, Duke of Brittany, Duke of Orléans, Duke of Brabant, Duke of Luxembourg, Duke of Lorraine, Duke of Milan, Duke of Parma, Duke of Lucca, Margrave of Namur, Count of Provence, Count of Portugal, Count of Burgundy, Count of Hainaut, Count of Flanders, Count of Holland and/or Count of Zeeland.

Charles d'Anjou, for example, (grandson to the above-named Phillipe Augustus, king of France), would, not long after these events, be Count of Anjou, of Provence, of Forcalquier and of Maine in France but also at various times, King of Sicily, King of Albania and King of Jerusalem. Such kingdoms did not make their feudal lords particularly "Sicilian", "Albanian", nor "Palestinian". Well ... unless that is ... they were to be chased from France of course. In that case they might be forced to rule some foreign kingdom from within, and one can imagine that in exile they would eventually end up learning the local tongue and consider that kingdom "Home". But that would take generations. And in the case at hand, the Anglicisation of the English royals had not even began yet. Interestingly enough, this process would be triggered by John's virtual ostracism from France. And it would then take a long time to progress.

Statue in Italy of Charles d'Anjou, the Italo-Albano-Palestinian(?)

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But in any case, Phillipe Augustus also initially refused to permit John to usurp Arthur's titles. He mobilised, started seizing castles and invested the young Arthur with the dominions (Anjou, Poitou, Maine, Touraine, and Normandy) that king Richard of England had held as his vassal. However, this is a far as he went in Arthur's support, having, at the time, to deal with the Vatican:

After loosing his first wife, the lovely and popular Isabella of Hainault (to complications in childbirth) and, in 1193, repudiating his second wife, the sister of Canute VI of Denmark, Ingeburga (who apparently turned out to be as unattractive as her name implies), the king of France had married, in June of 1196, the beautiful Bavarian Agnes Maria of Andechs-Merania. But a new Pope (Innocent III) did not recognise the annulment, as had the previous one, nor therefore the marriage. The king nonetheless refused to give up his new bride. So, at the close of 1199, France was placed under an "Interdict" (all churches under lock and no services held). At at time when the church was powerful (just consider that popes could order crusades), this was more than an annoyance. To avoid open conflicts under these circumstances, Phillipe Augustus, in what was to prove a major mistake (for which he would never forgive himself), convinced Arthur to relinquish his birthright and to make peace with his uncle John. This Arthur did.

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On May 22, 1200, at the treaty of Le Goulet, on the River Seine, the king of France agreed to accept John as the heir to Richard's titles, after taking back part of Normandy, John's submission, his oath of vassalage and 20,000 marks sterling.

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It was a couple of years later that John kidnaped Isabel and our story began. In addition to his appeal to the King of France, de Lusignan went into open rebellion against John over Isabel. So John asked his vassals in England to meet him at Portsmouth and embark for an attack on the count. At first, giving us a first glimpse of the ideas which were to soon give birth to the Magna Carta, the earls conditioned joining him upon all the favours he had promised them to gain support for his claim to the throne. But finally, as required by their oaths, they did show up. But John, instead of sailing to do battle, simply took from his vassals of all the money they had brought to spend in his service, and stayed in England.

In late May, early June 1201, John returns to France and meets Philip to reassert the Le Goulet treaty. He is even welcomed at the court of the royal palace in Paris. Nonetheless, Phillippe Augustus made it clear to John that, though he continued to accept him as Richard's heir, he could not overlook his conduct. He insisted that the case between John and de Lusignan be somehow resolved, even in John's own court as Count of Poitou if he wished.

By late March 1202, John had done nothing. And this when the formal summons was then issued, citing John to appear before Philip's court. As we know, John neither came nor properly excused himself, causing, in June, the king of France to depose John of his fiefs and, seizing castle after castle, to implemented the official deposition in deed.

Furthermore, Philip was now reconciled with the Church. His wife, Agnes, had died (reportedly of a broken heart) and Innocent III had agreed that the children she bore Augustus were legitimate, making the whole dispute mute. So Philip now could take up Arthur's cause again. He knighted Arthur, betrothed him to his daughter, Mary of France, and again assigned him all the Angevin fiefs (except Normandy). When John demanded Arthur's submission, he refused, marching instead from Poitou and besieging the castle of Mirebeau from where Eleanor, his grandmother, had been assisting his uncle John.

In July of 1202, with battles raging everywhere, John covers the hundred miles from Le Mans almost overnight one night and manages to surprise the sixteen year old Arthur at Mirabeau. He takes him, his sister, and his allies, prisoners. This brilliant move could have changed John's reputation. Unfortunately his behaviour in victory was even more wretched than in defeat. John's reported treatment of noble prisoners disgusts everyone, even the knights who fought with him. Fearing for Arthur, one of them, Guillaume des Roches, went to John with nobles from Brittany and asked Lackland to hand Arthur over to him. In exchange for his support, John had previously given Guillaume a written oath to follow his counsel in regards to Arthur, but he nonetheless refused handing him over. This confirmed his fears. Guillaume had no choice but to join with other barons into rebellion against John. By the end of October, they had seized Angers.

It is then that Arthur disappears. His weighted-down body is later discovered in the Seine. It is widely suspected that John had the youth killed ... and may even have killed him of his own hand.

Centuries later, William Shakespeare, in his play "The Life and Death of King John", had the young Arthur commit suicide, jumping to his death of his own will. This is almost certainly fiction. Though brilliant, Shakespeare was always playing to nationalistic sentiment.

Arthur dead

It is overwhelmingly likely that the English king did indeed commit the murder. Shortly after Arthur's disappearance, William de Braose, in whose castle Arthur had been held prisoner by John, started to receive new lands and titles from him, ostensibly to keep quiet. Remaining doubts were removed when William's wife, Maud de Braose, the Lady of La Haie, who would have had knowledge of Arthur's fate, referred quite directly to John as "... a king who murdered his own nephew"!

At any rate, the Bretons (people of Brittany) sent Peter, bishop of Rennes, to ask the King of France to summon John to answer for Arthur's fate. So Philippe Augustus summoned him again, but this time in order to appear before the Court of the Peers of France. This institution, later incorporated into the Parliament of Paris, is believed to have originated in Charlemagne's twelve elite Paladin warriors, something like the Knights of the Round Table. There, John could argue his innocence before his peers.

Understandably weary of the likely consequences, John failed to appear to answer for the murder. Though the British king had promised he would do so, he used various pretexts not to. His evasions included trying to find loopholes having to do with which of his titles he was summoned under, something English history books seem to find perfectly reasonable. In any case, by that time the king of France had basically had enough of the unchivalrous, ungrateful and arrogant John! He declared him "judged to forfeit all the lands held by homage". "La commise", the exercise of the feudal right of a lord to confiscate the fiefs of one of his vassals, was generally used in two major cases: One, when a new vassal failed to pay homage to his lord and two, when the vassal showed disloyalty towards his lord, and more serious charge called "félonie" ("felony"). And it is as a felon that John was loosing his fiefs. Basically, the rightful owner was now essentially confiscating all of John's "Empire" but England! The king of France continued on seizing John's castles.

On December 5th, 1203, John fled to England. By March of 1204, with the storming of the magnificent and supposedly impregnable Château Gaillard, Philip Augustus' deposition of his vassal was a matter of wrapping up. So John sent the respected Guillaume le Marechal, to seek terms. Philip ... according to a typical English history text, would then ... "set his terms so high that nothing was to be lost by going on with the war". The apparently crippling demands of the king of France seem to have been for John to release Arthur, or, if he was already dead, to at least release Arthur's sister, Eleanor. These apparently outrageous conditions were refused by John.

So Philip went on seizing forts and towns. On June 24, 1204 Philip Augustus entered Normandy's capital, Rouen. Only the fiefs of le Marechal and the Earl of Leicester had been spared from seizure, as both had sworn their allegiance to him. Philip then moved to depose John of his fiefs in Touraine and Poitou, sparing only Gascony proper. Only after capturing the castle of Chinon, the Angevin seat, where the treasury was held, and where John Lackland began his journey to take Arthur's titles, did the king of France stop his advance.

At the end of May, 1205, John readied a fleet to return to France and get his fiefs back by force. His barons, however, led by Guillaume le Marechal, simply refused to attack Augustus. On the 26th of October, 1206, unable to change his situation, John signed a truce.

But John did not mean it. He immediately set upon a massive conspiracy against Philip Augustus. Promising fiefs and money, he would spend the following years gathering as many potential enemies of the French king as he could. But in the meantime, he also had a dispute with the Pope.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury had died in 1205, the monks of Canterbury had elected their sub-prior, Reginald, to become the new Archbishop. Preferring his own man, John de Gray, John vetoed the election. In December, a mission was sent to Rome to present the case before Pope Innocent III.

The pope, in late March 1206, rejected both men for the post. In 1207, with Innocent's approval, the monks finally elected a former theology lecturer of the University of Paris, Étienne de Langton/Stephen Langton. Not getting his way, John reacted by expelling the monks of Canterbury, seized church lands and criminalised supporting Stephen Langton.

The Pope responded, in March 1208, by putting England under an interdict and, in November 1209, by excommunicating John.

John didn't seem too bothered and was, slowly but surely, continuing to further his plans against the French king, enticing many barons and having them swear, on 4 May 1212 at the treaty of Lambeth, not to ally with Philip Augustus no matter what.

And then John learned that Innocent III passed a sentence of deposition against him. And the Pope asked Philip Augustus to carry it out. And Philip Augustus had acceded. And the King of France was gathering knights, ships, and equipment and showing all the signs of seriously planning to remove John from the Kingdom of England.

Suddenly, the English king backed down from his dispute with the Pontiff and submitted to him in every possible way: He welcomed the disputed Cardinal, paid the pope homage and made England, from a sovereign kingdom, into a tax paying vassal state of the Holy See. Seriously! So, in 1213, the Pope removed the sentence of deposition and placed the kingdom of England, now a vassal state, under papal protection.

Not having to invade England, Philippe Augustus could now deal with another rebellious vassal, Count Ferrand of Flanders, who was holed up at Ghent, the largest city of Europe after Paris. In May of that year, Philippe was thus engaged in intense battles. Seeing an opportunity, John sent a fleet against him.

The fleet was led by, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (Guillaume Longespée), an extramarital son of Henry II. They came upon the royal fleet anchored almost unprotected at Damme, on the estuary of the Zwyn. The king and his army were inland. So Longsword and his men managed to seize and/or destroy many ships. They also pillaged the nearby port town of Bruges. When news of it arrived to king Philip, he rushed from Ghen with a large number of knights and attacked the raiders. Longsword barely escaped, leaving many of his men behind to be cut down by the king's knights.

Philip Augustus' fleet

Many ships were completely destroyed however, even more of them damaged and the harbour of Damme was blocked by debris. Augustus decided to have the remaining ships burned. Furthermore, with the loss of most of his supplies, he could no longer logistically sustain an army of knights. Though he had easily invaded Flanders and taken all major centres within a week, he now had to leave behind the towns he had just conquered. The whole pitiful event would become known as the "battle" of Damme.

This event is sometimes credited for ending a threat of "an imminent French invasion of England" or some such nationalistic malarkey. But of course King Philip was interested in the lands he oversaw in France, not England. The "threat" had been the order of deposition by the pope. This no longer held for the obvious reason that John had capitulated to the Pope and England was now his vassal state. At this point John was officially ruling England as the Pope's representative! Philip would have had no interest in getting involved.

John on the other was interested in getting back to France. Now under papal protection and having gotten himself a tremendous alliance of all the enemies of Philip Augustus, (which included Count Ferrand of Flanders, Germany’s Otto IV, the Holy Roman Emperor and a number of German princes from the Rhine region, Theobald I, the Duke of Lorraine, Renaud I, the Count of Dammartin) to join in, John finally felt ready for a massive offensive against the king of France. He and his allies went for it!

The assault took place in July of 1214 and occurred on two fronts: John attacked at La-Roches-aux-Moines in Anjou. The Germans, the Flemish, the Dutch and their allies attacked at Bouvines in Flanders. Not until the time of emperor Charles V had so many enemies lined up against a French monarch.

The king of France led the battle against both the Flemish, Dutch and German armies himself. He sent his son (the future king Louis VIII, "The Lion"), to face the "English" forces.

Prince Louis "The Lion"

On July 2, strike one, as John has his forces attacking the fort of La Roche aux Moines, he realises that Louis with his army of knights are zooming in on them. In a panic, the king of England escapes. He leaves everything behind ... treasures, weapons and war machines.

On July 27, strike two, at Bouvines, although he was reported to have fought heroically until then, Otto IV is nearly slain and flees back to Germany. He is promptly deposed by Frederick of Hohenstaufen, an ally of the king of France. Frederick was to become Frederick II, the most powerful Holy Roman Emperor of the Middle Ages.

And as for the army led by Ferrand of Flanders, well, together with the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Dammartin and others, Ferrand is arrested by the French king to be kept prisoner for the next 12 years. Strike three! The King of France and his knights, though vastly outnumbered, had proceeded to defeat them all decisively.

Philippe-Auguste before the battle of Bouvines

"The armour shone in the splendour of the sun and it seemed that the light of day was doubled. The banners unfolded in the winds and offered themselves to the currents; they presented a delightful spectacle to the eyes. What then? The armies, thus ordered for battle on each side, entered into combat, full of ardour and desire to fight. But very quickly the dust rose toward the sky in such quantities that it became hard to see and to recognize each other. The first French echelon attacked the Flemings with virility, breaking their echelons by nobly cutting across them, and penetrated their army through all impetuous and tenacious movement. The Flemings, seeing this and defeated in the space of all hour, turned their flacks and quickly took to flight. At this perilous moment, dependants abandoned to distress their lords, their fathers, their sons, and their nephews. However, Ferrand, Count of Flanders, and Renaud, Count of Boulogne, remained in the battle and resisted the onslaught of the French with virile fighting. In the end, they were wounded and taken by the French along with innumerable nobles whose names we will not give; they were jailed in a number of castles in Gaul. As for Otto who, by the authority of the Pope, we refrain from calling Emperor, deprived of everyone's help, thrown three times to the ground from his horse, or rather his horses as some claim, almost alone except for a single count, he hurried to take flight. Thus, surreptitiously fleeing from the King of France's hand, he escaped, vanquished in battle. In this manner, the providence of divine mercy ended this battle which had been fought, as we have said, near the bridge of Bouvines, for the praise and the glory of His Majesty, and for the honour of the Holy Church. May its honour, its virtue, and its power remain through the infinity of centuries to come. Amen."
"Relatio Marchianesis de Pugna Bouvinis" one of the first accounts of the battle.

NC Wyeth

An interesting aspect of what was undoubtedly a great victory in one of history’s defining battles ("the most significant in medieval Europe","the first great international conflict in Europe", "the greatest battle of its age" etc), is how consistently absent it seems to be from most English-language histories! Had you ever heard of La-Roches-aux-Moines or Bouvines before my mentioning them?

I didn’t think so! :)

Now, following this, John dared not show himself back home in France. He had no choice but to stay confined to "the soggy islands". Unlike his predecessors, he would become a "resident king of England". Having essentially lost all of his titles but that of the British crown, he, as would future rulers of England, found himself in exile, cut off from the homeland.

Trying to remedy this would then become the main cause of "Anglo-French" conflict, notably in the Hundred Years' War.

By the way, thanks to Shakespeare, you've almost surely heard of Agincourt, but besides Bouvines, another battle you are unlikely to know about of is that of Castillon. It's the ultimate victory by the kingdom of France against that of England, which ended the hundred years' war! But again, because later nationalist-minded English history books portrayed the French kings of England as "English", Castillon is almost completely unmentioned.

Burying such events has been so successfully done that I've come across reasonably educated Englishmen who were surprised to learn that in the Hundred year's war, it was the kingdom of France that was victorious over the kingdom England, not the other way around. It's so bad that even English themselves are starting to be embarrassed by it. In 2010 the Guardian noticed:

"The British tend to be rather selective about the battles they remember. Every English schoolboy was once able to recite the roll call of our glorious wins at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415), but no one’s ever heard of the French victories at Patay (1429) and (especially) at Castillon (1453), where French cannons tore the English apart, winning the Hundred Years War and confirming France as the most powerful military nation in Europe.

And what about the Duke of Enghien thrashing the Spanish at Rocroi late on in the Thirty Years War in 1643, ending a century of Spanish dominance? Or the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, when General Comte de Rochambeau and American forces prevailed? The British always prided themselves on superiority at sea, but knew they could never win a land war on the Continent.

France’s achievements help to explain another French “military victory”. Whether it is ranks (general, captain, corporal, lieutenant); equipment (lance, mine, bayonet, epaulette, trench); organisation (volunteer, regiment, soldier, barracks) or strategy (army, camouflage, combat, esprit de corps, reconnaissance), the language of warfare is French."

The Guardian

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But back to John. He had basically lost all his titles but that of the English kingdom, which he had had to give to the Pope to avoid loosing it too. Most barons in England had guiltily helped their disastrous king usurp Arthur's titles. They now had second thoughts. Worried about what he would do next, the barons conditioned any further support. They aggressively presented John, in January 1215, with demands based on the text of Henry I's Charter of Liberties.

He placated them by promising to reply after the Easter celebration of that year. Instead, he pleaded for help from the Pope. After gaining papal funds, in May 1215, John started attacking his barons with a newly bought mercenary army.

In response, the barons withdrew their oaths to John and went into open conflict with him. By May 17 they had taken London. There, using the same strategy as the Pope, the noblemen of England let it be known that they were about to call upon the king of France to depose king John. So this time, John again accepted all the demands put to him. When presented with the forty-eight “Articles of the Barons”, he basically gave way on every point.

Depiction of the signing of the Magna Carta
in Cassell's "History of England"

Presented on June 10, 1215, at Runnymede, these articles where made into a formal grant, on June 15, 1215, to become known as ... "The Magna Carta"! Four copies survive today.

The Magna Carta, drafted, in Latin, by Archbishop Stephen de Langton,
demanded an increase of rights for freemen, nobles, knights and officials of the church.
The document mostly ignored the English, "villeins", serfs, and what have you.
This was about the rights of the ruling nobility, not the natives.

The Magna Carta is considered of great significance, less in England than in the USA for some reason. The common perception is that it marked the transition from the God given, to the parliamentary legitimisation of authority (paving the way for eventual democratic sovereignty). In other words, it is thought that though a sovereign may indeed have been considered "by the grace of God, King", he was, after the Magna Carta, suddenly now bound by human laws.

However, “It would be anachronistic in the extreme to argue that the creators of the Magna Carta had any thoughts of establishing embryonic human rights” writes Dr. Claire Breay, the lead curator of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts at the British Library. And the document is not even the first example of feudal custom being written down. Rights and requirements had already been codified by Henry I in his charter of liberties of 1100.

Documents like the Magna Carta also allowed a desire for liberty to be channelled in a direction that continued to serve the interests of monarchical regimes, thereby suppressing any alternative conceptions.

It may surprise some to learn that even today, allegiance from members of parliament, the police and the armed forces does not go to Great Britain but to the monarch alone (even that of the bishops of the Church of England), and that an English king or queen is above the law: he/she is immune from any civil or criminal proceeding. He/she cannot be brought to trial before a court of law (an immunity not shared by other members of the royal family).

In any case, John completely ignored the charter. He pleaded almost immediately for the Pope to forbid it. John ruling England in the pope's name, it was, after all, the Pope's authority that the Magna Carta actually challenged. And sure enough, the pope recalled Archbishop Stephen de Langton, declared the Magna Carta null & void and even excommunicated any baron who supported it. He also provided yet more papal funds for John ... who again hired foreign mercenaries, attacked at Rochester castle, launched marauding expeditions to the north and was soon poised to attack London.

The barons responded by making good on their threat. They asked Philip Augustus to depose John. The king of France, however, refused to go to war in England without papal sanction (he might also have been tired of always being used to terrify the king of England into concessions). The English nobles then made their case before Philip Augustus' son, Prince Louis, the young "Lion", who was exactly the same age as Arthur would have been and who had already defeated John once. They offered him the English crown.

Some "historians" seeing this in British nationalistic terms, seem somewhat embarrassed that "Englishmen" would so naturally ask kings and princes of France to invade England. But they ought not to be. This was not some "national" war. Again, this was simply a feudal matter between French noblemen. And it is telling, for example, that the annals of Waverley reported that the French Prince was coming to … “prevent the realm being pillaged by aliens [mercenaries]”.

The young lion, who had married Blanche de Castile, the granddaughter of Henry II of England, seemed moved by their cause (and was probably up for an adventure). At first, he sent a contingent of knights to protect London. And then, despite the threat of Papal excommunication and his father's disapproval, he also promised to go himself accompanied by an even larger force of knights. Philip Augustus was so furious over this that he refused to speak to his son. Nonetheless, Louis did just as he promised the barons: On May 21st 1216, watchmen on the coast of Thanet detected sails on the horizon. The next day, the King of England and his army, unable to stop them, had to witness Louis’ fleet land. The French army disembarked on the coast of Kent.

Easily disposing of the little resistance he met, the twenty-eight year old prince soon entered London, recaptured Winchester and conquered the majority of the British kingdom. Not exactly how Hollywood portrays things, is it! At St Paul's Cathedral, at an event of great pomp and celebration that attracted all of London he was proclaimed "king of England". Many English nobles, including the King of Scotland, travelled to give homage to Louis.

No crowning ceremony was performed however. Catholic priests were forbidden from performing it. The reason was that since England belonged to the pope, with John ruling in the pope's name, Louis had basically attacked the papacy and the whole of the catholic church.

Furthermore, Louis captured all the Cinque Ports but one, Dover. The King of France taunted his son for not having seized the most important one, "the key to England". And rightly so. When Louis did move on to Dover, on July 25, it had prepared well. It resisted so gallantly that Louis had an important part of his forces kept away from other operations.

In October of 1216, John, on the run from Louis, died a painful death, reportedly of dysentery. A Benedictine monk commented: "Foul as it is, Hell itself is defiled by the presence of John". He would be the first King of England since "the Norman invasion" to actually be buried in England.

Louis was now effectively the king of England. However, his only support were his wife, Blanche, and the barons who called upon him. The catholic church was against him (the pope had excommunicated Louis for his attack on John), which meant that his father, Philip Augustus was also against the adventure. Furthermore, the problem had essentially been John himself. And he was now gone, leaving behind an unblemished nine-year-old son, Henry. Since Arthur did not live long enough to leave an heir, Henry's claim to the throne was perfectly legitimate.

To establish this birthright, Pierre des Roches (the bishop of Winchester) and a few barons, rushed to get the boy crowned. But with Prince Louis’ government in London, they couldn’t go there. So, on October 28 1216, they brought the boy from the castle at Devizes to some abbey in Gloucester. There, in front of a small attendance presided by a papal legate, a kind of crowning ceremony was performed ... using as a crown a band of gold fashioned from a necklace.

England was in quite a mess at this point. With his death, John's former child-bride, Isabel, the queen mother now, left England to return home and marry her childhood fiancé, Hugh de Lusignan. Before going home, she entrusted the care of the boy Henry, to the remarkable Guillaume le Marechal, the same knight who had been successful in getting support for John's own dubious crowning.

Guillaume le Marechal AKA William Marshal
"the greatest knight that ever lived"

For more information on William Marshal you may want to read the chronology of his life published by his son and titled: “L'Historie de Guillaume le Marechal (PDF)”.

In any case, William, as first regent, asked the barons not to blame Henry for his father's sins. The prevailing sentiment disliking the idea of depriving a boy of his inheritance, together with admiration for William, meant that he had little difficulty. The Barons had no reason not to accept Henry. Le Marechal also assured them of an even more generous Magna Carta. And with the Catholic church's help, William slowly managed to get most barons to defect from Louis to Henry. Augustus reportedly said: “The land [England] is lost for Louis and in a short time he and his supporters will be chased out of it, as the Marshal has taken the matter in hand.”

Indeed, as English barons switched allegiance to the boy Henry and le Marechal, they started attacking Louis and his supporters. Though a great deal of the country remained loyal to him, the south-west of England and the midlands were going to Henry. The same barons who had sworn oaths of loyalty to him and even proclaimed him their king, were now betraying the young man who had come to England in answer to their pleas.

The two opposing sides fought for about a year. On December 6, 1216 Louis took Hetfortd castle but, as was fit of knightly behaviour, he allowed the defending forces to leave with their horses and weapons. He then took Berkhamstead in late December but again allowed the garrison to withdraw honourably with their horses and weapons.

But chivalry was not always prevalent. On May 15, 1217, at Lincoln castle, Marshal and Falkes de Breaute succeeded in an attack against Barons loyal to Louis. This event, known as “Lincoln Fair” after the looting that took place afterwards, saw the wholesale sacking of the city.

Next, as le Marechal prepared for a siege against London, at the straits of Dover, Hubert de Burgh, the same man who had been Arthur's jailer, sunk Louis’ reinforcement convoy. Apparently, when first seeing the ships flying Louis' colours, de Burgh turned to flee, thinking that they were warships. Once informed that they were actually transport ships, he turned back and attacked them. In any case, this event, de Burgh's "Great Naval Victory" against Louis's supply-transport ships, made it impractical for the prince to continue fighting in England.

The main argument for Louis' presence in England was that by the murder of Arthur of Brittany, John had forfeited the crown. With John death, this no longer held. War weary, the prince sought a way out. After insisting upon and receiving from le Marechal a guarantee that those barons who still supported him would not suffer any reprisals, he released them all from their oaths to him and exhorted them to cease fighting. On September 11 of 1217, at Lambeth, a peace treaty was signed. Louis' last demand was that he be compensated in gold for having had to invade England. After this was duly paid, Louis agreed to leave England to the boy Henry and not to pursue this further or initiate any future conflict. Ridiculously, English histories will typically describe this as a French humiliation and a great "English" victory!

Henry was crowned in 1220, at Westminster Abbey in London, three years after his earlier "coronation" in Gloucester. The boy would rule the British as King Henry III of England. The civil war that had preceded his crowning would be known as the First Barons' War, with the nobles who supported Louis to be referred to as "the rebels" and those who supported Henry as the "loyalists".

Louis did leave Henry alone. However, years later, in the Second Barons' War, another French nobleman, named Simon de Montfort (from Montfort near Paris), the 6th Earl of Leicester (son to the Simon de Montfort "the elder" of Albigensian Crusade fame), took Henry's place to become the de facto king of England.

The reason for this was that the now grown King Henry III, was refusing to honour the terms of an agreement he had signed in 1258 (the Provisions of Oxford). In 1263, it was agreed to submit the matter to the judgement of "Saint" Louis IX, who had succeeded Louis VIII, the Lion, as king of France. Since the French king decided in favour of Henry, that could have been the end of it, Simon however refused to comply.

So, on May 14, 1264, at the Battle of Lewes, de Montfort fought King Henry and his son, the future King Edward I. De Montfort defeated and captured them both. He then took control of government and ruled England.

Simon de Monfort

Simon did not have his prisoners killed and himself crowned king of England or any such thing. Instead, in 1265, he laid the foundations, for the current English Parliament: Each county of England was allowed to elect and send two knights to Parliament to represent their areas. This wasn't too revolutionary. But then he also allowed each borough to elect commoners to send as representatives. The Magna Carta, had mostly been about increasing the rights of the nobility. De Montfort took the then extraordinary step of establishing rights for the English natives, something indeed revolutionary.

This is how the English concept of a democratic representative parliament arose. That’s right … Simon de Montfort, was the one who did that. And of course, those in England who had supported de Montfort, felt that he had simply gone too far. Thus, on 4 August 1265, heavily outnumbered, Simon de Montfort died fighting them at the battle of Evesham in Worcestershire. Surrounded and his horse having been killed beneath him, he continued fighting valiantly to the end. In the battle, King Henry III of England, who, though his prisoner, was riding along with de Montfort in full armour, was also thrown to the ground. Fearful for his life, he screamed: "Save me, save me, I am Henry of Winchester!" He thus survived.

After Simon de Montfort's death, the attackers took vengeance upon his lifeless corpse, desecrating it. They then pillaged the nearby Abbey and town. They then paraded de Montfort's head all the way to London to be impaled on London Bridge. What had remained of his body after mutilation, together with the body of his son Henry and that of Sir Hugh, Baron le Despencer, had been carried by the monks of Evesham and buried honourably, in funeral services held near the High Altar of the Abbey. Soon after, people started making pilgrimages to the Abbey and the Battle Well, said to be a source of miracles. These were forcibly suppressed and de Montfort's remains removed to be re-buried in a place that none would know. Incidentally, besides his legacy in terms of representative government, he may also have been the origin for "Simon" of "Simon says".

Much later, in St Lawrence's Church in Evesham a stained glass window was created that depicts Simon de Montfort's last hours in the Abbey: Here, we see Simon de Montfort and his knights take communion on the morning of the Battle. In the insert are portrayed de Montfort's arms.

Cheers!

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PS) The following items show that during the Middle Ages the Kings of England were quite "French":

I)
You were actually legally permitted to kill Englishmen in England. Henry I, king of England from 1100 to 1135, decreed that if someone was killed, it could be ignored as long as it could be shown that the corpse was that of some unfortunate English native. For a killing to have been a chargeable murder offence, the slain man had to be French. This surprising law came from a king considered so just as to be referred to as "The Lion of Justice":

"[The death of] an Englishman is not regarded or paid for as murder, but only [that of] a Frenchman; indeed, should there be no one to prove that the slain man is English, he is held to be French.... If a hundred wishes to prove concerning someone that he is not a Frenchman and that [accordingly] there is no murder, this obligation is to be entrusted to twelve of the better men from the same hundred, swearing [to that effect]..."
Laws of Henry I

II)

Richard the lioneart's banner, which one often sees used as a nationalist symbol for England, does not actually represent England at all. The three golden lions on red (Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued Azure) indicate titles held in vassalage to the king of France: Two lions for the dukedom of (upper and lower) Normandy and one for Aquitaine. These lions continue to symbolise these same regions of France today. He who held these titles would fly this same banner ... regardless of the English kingdom. England has nothing to do with them.

III)
On the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, one can read a phrase signifying that he who utters it, is bound to no man, only to God and (his) Justice. It is famed to have originated in 1198 at the Battle of Gisors fought between Richard I and Philippe Augustus and meant to declare Richard's rebellion against his king. Richard would later kneel in vassalage before the king of France, but this would nonetheless end up being adopted as the motto of the Monarchs of England. As the sentiment (to only obey God and Justice) may indeed be considered inspiring, it might make some nationalists burst with English patriotic pride. Problem is, it was uttered by a French nobleman who had been knighted by king Louis VII, the father of Augustus. He simply also happened to hold the kingdom of England along with his other titles. The motto is of course expressed in French:

"Dieu et mon droit"

Another French phrase, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" also appears in the full achievement of the Royal Arms.

IV)
The procedure ("Royal Assent") by which a bill actually becomes a law of England, is still granted in French today: "Le Roy remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult" (The King thanks his good subjects, accepts their bounty, and wills it so) or "Le Roy le veult" (the King wills it so). When the monarch is a woman, "La Reyne" (the Queen), is subtituted for "Le Roy".

V)
Finally, well, Thomas Babington puts it most succinctly:
"During the century and a half which followed the Conquest [by Guillaume le Conquérant], there is, to speak strictly, no English history. The French Kings of England rose, indeed, to an eminence which was the wonder and dread of all neighbouring nations. They conquered Ireland. They received the homage of Scotland. By their valour, by their policy, by their fortunate matrimonial alliances, they became far more popular on the Continent than their liege lords the Kings of France. Asia, as well as Europe, was dazzled by the power and glory of our tyrants. Arabian chroniclers recorded with unwilling admiration the fall of Acre, the defence of Joppa, and the victorious march to Ascalon; and Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the name of the lionhearted Plantagenet. At one time it seemed that the line of Hugh Capet was about to end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees.

So strong an association is established in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and splendour of her foreign masters, and has lamented the decay of that power and splendour as a calamity to our country. This is, in truth, as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic regret and shame. The Conqueror and his descendants to the fourth generation were not Englishmen: most of them were born in France: they spent the greater part of their lives in France: their ordinary speech was French: almost every high office in their gift was filled by a Frenchman: every acquisition which they made on the Continent estranged them more and more from the population of our island.

Had the Plantagenets, as at one time seemed likely, succeeded in uniting all France under their government, it is probable that England would never have had an independent existence. Her princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been men differing in race and language from the artisans and the tillers of the earth. The revenues of her great proprietors would have been spent in festivities and diversions on the banks of the Seine. The noble language of Milton and Burke would have remained a rustic dialect, without a literature, a fixed grammar, or a fixed orthography, and would have been contemptuously abandoned to the use of boors. No man of English extraction would have risen to eminence, except by becoming in speech and habits a Frenchman."
Thomas Babington, 1st Baron Macaulay, in his History of England.

Links:
British Library’s collections - Digitised manuscripts
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
The Orb
U. of Texas, Austin: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts
Gothic Architecture