Festival of Freedoms

This September, members of the Magna Carta Project will be taking part in Parliament’s Festival of Freedoms. The Festival is part of Parliament in the Making, a year-long cultural and education programme that commemorates a series of major anniversaries including 750 years since Simon de Montfort’s parliament and 800 years since the sealing of Magna Carta.

Westminster Hall, site of the
1265 parliament 

On 15 September, Sophie Ambler will be talking at Portcullis House on ‘What Happened at Simon de Montfort’s Parliament?’. De Montfort’s parliament of 1265 is celebrated as a pivotal episode in the history of politics. But why was the parliament summoned and what actually took place? Sophie will describe the tumultuous context of the parliament, with England’s king imprisoned and the kingdom ruled by a council of his subjects, and examine new evidence to reconstruct the events, personnel and atmosphere of the meeting, in order to reveal the dramatic course of the parliament and its theatrical climax. 

Statue of
Llewelyn the Great,
Conwy

On 17 September, David Carpenter will be speaking at The National Assembly for Wales on ‘Wales and Magna Carta in 1215’. Magna Carta, one of the most famous documents in world history, was sealed 800 years ago in 1215. Here, David will explore the crucial role played by the Welsh rulers in the creation of the Great Charter. Focussing on the rebellion against King John by Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales (later known as Llewelyn the Great) and his allies, he will examine the chapters in Magna Carta dealing with their grievances - revealing that Magna Carta is a very much a British document, with important chapters about both Wales and Scotland.

These events are free and all are welcome but booking is required. To find out more about the Festival of Freedoms, to see the full events listings and to book your place, please visit the 2015 anniversary events page on Parliament’s website. 

Cry 'God for Simon, England, and St George'? The First Sighting of England's Patron Saint

Saint George Killing the Dragon
by Bernat Martorell (1434/5)

You might have noticed a theme in recent Features and blogs: banners, battle-flags and heraldry. Continuing along these lines, this post looks at a remarkable event in the story of England's arms: the first appearance of St George's banner on an English battlefield - the standard-bearer being no less than the saint himself. 

The Dover Chronicle records how, at the Battle of Lewes in 1264: ‘there were some in the army at Lewes who saw, clearly, an unknown knight, clad in armour and holding before him an unknown banner, and an archbishop clothed in pontifical garb blessing the baronial army; and they vanished, suddenly, when the battle was done. They were reckoned to be St Thomas the Martyr and St George.’ This, it has been noted, is the first known allusion of this sort to St George,[1] later to become the kingdom’s champion in the Hundred Years War and England’s patron saint.

Why, then, did St George makes his first appearance on the Sussex Downs in 1264? This was a turbulent time in England’s history. Six years earlier, a group of barons had seized power from Henry III, setting up a council to govern in the king’s name.  Henry recovered power briefly but in 1263 Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, led a violent campaign to reimpose conciliar rule. Montfort might have had a dark side (to say the least) but his followers believed him the instrument of God, possessed of a Christ-like willingness to speak and to suffer in a noble cause.

Driven by intense personal piety and the need to encourage his men, Montfort turned to a powerful iconography: that of the crusade. In December 1263, trapped at Southwark between the city gates and the king’s oncoming forces, Montfort had his men signed with the cross front and back.[2] At Lewes, five months later, the earl called upon his men to fight for the kingdom, God, the saints, and mother Church and told them to keep faith. His troops prostrated themselves, stretching out their arms to form a cross.[3] The bishop of Worcester promised for all who fought manfully that day remission of their sins, assuring them that it was glorious to endure torment in the defence of truth. The soldiers then donned crosses on their backs and chests.[4] Montfort and his men were crucesignati. They could fight secure in the knowledge that their struggle earned them merit in the eyes of God and that, if they were to die, then as martyrs they would win a place in Heaven besides the saints themselves.

Battle outside Antioch, BL Yates Thompson 12, f. 29 

This ritual transformation of Montfort and his army into holy warriors had a potent effect – hence the sighting of St George on the battlefield. The vision echoed that of the imperilled soldiers of the First Crusade, at Antioch in 1098. The Gesta Francorum tells how, with the beleaguered crusaders in a state of desperation, there ‘appeared from the mountains a countless host of men on white horses, whose banners were all white.’ The crusaders ‘did not understand what was happening or who these men might be, until they realised that this was the succour sent by Christ, and that the leaders were St George, St Mercurius and St Demetrius.’[5]

By the time that Montfort’s army marched, the First Crusade held a central place in chivalric culture. Its leaders were paragons of knightly prowess, elevated to semi-mythic proportions, their deeds sung across the feasting halls of Europe.[6] In the process, the miraculous appearance of St George and his comrades grew in stature. The Chanson d’Antioche, first put to parchment in the early-thirteenth century, told how the crusaders, battered by enemy blows,

John, duke of Bedford, before St George,
from the Bedford Hours (BL, Add MS. 18850, f.256v

‘saw a company riding proudly down ... [of] more than half a million. They were whiter than the snow that falls at the end of February. St George was out in front at its head with the noble St Maurice, renowned as a stout warrior, and St Demetrius and St Mercurius as standard-bearers ... the bishop of Le Puy restored order: “My lords, there is nothing to be afraid of. These forces are coming to help us. They are the angels sent by God which I told you of yesterday”. When the Turks saw [the reinforcements] they were flung into confusion.’[7]

Like the Christian troops at Antioch, Montfort’s army faced fearful odds but, as the defenders of God and Church, were blessed by divine succour, in the form of the great crusading saint.

In one sense, then – before Henry V at Agincourt and John, duke of Bedford, at Verneuil – Montfort was the first English general to ride out under the banner of St George.

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[1] The Song of Lewes, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1963), 85 n.358.

[2] The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs (2 vols., Rolls Series, 1880), ii, 230-31.

[3] Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, ed. H. Ellis (Rolls Series, 1859), 222.

[4] The Chronicle of William de Rishager of the Barons’ War, ed. J. O. Halliwell (Camden Society, 1840), 30-31.

[5] Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. R. Hill (London, 1962), 69.

[6] See S. A. John, The Creation of a First Crusade Hero: Godfrey of Bouillon in History, Literature and Memory, c.1100-c.1300 (Swansea University PhD thesis, 2012).

[7] The Chanson d’Antioche: An Old French Account of the First Crusade, tr. S. Edgington and C. Sweetenham (Farnham, 2011), 313 (358),

The Lord Edward and the Leopard of Lewes

The royal arms, depicted
by Matthew Paris
(BL Royal 14 C VII f.53)

If you’ve been following our Feature of the Month, you would have seen Nicholas Vincent’s recent article on ‘Leopards, Lions and Dragons: King John’s Banners and Battle Flags’. Here, Nick explained how the ‘three lions’ device – now the ‘three lions on the shirt’ of England – was first used in the heraldry of the Angevin rulers. King John, for instance, was shown on his seal charging into battle carrying a shield decorated with three lions passant gardant.

As Nick has shown elsewhere, though, from as early as the 1230s the Angevin lions were taken for leopards – indeed in 1251 Henry III ordered a set of robes decorated with ‘three small leopards’ front and back.[1] This was, perhaps, a strange development. The lion was the king of beasts and thus a fitting symbol for a ruler. The leopard, on the other hand (as Isidore of Seville explained in his Etymologies) was ‘born of the adultery of a lion and a pard... and from [this] union this degenerate offspring is created, just like a mule.’ The leopard was a mongrel, ignoble creature. Why the Angevins were happy to swap leopards for lions isn't clear (though it's been suggested that this was a reference to their descent from the most famous of leopards, born of adulterous union – William the Bastard).

A pard, shown in 13th century bestiary (BL, Harley MS 4751, f.6)

The leopard image was one that could quickly be turned against the Angevins. In May 1264, Henry III was defeated on the field of battle at Lewes and taken captive, together with his first-born son and heir, the lord Edward. The victor of Lewes was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, who was to rule England at the head of a council for the next fifteen months. Montfort and his circle were brilliant propagandists and, in an effort to win support for their regime, commissioned a poem celebrating Montfort’s victory. The Song of Lewes was probably written by a friar (the experts in preaching) and makes good use of a well-known technique of medieval sermons: similitude. This was an emotive device. Preachers, wrote Thomas of Chobham in his Summa on the Art of Preaching, ‘should know the natures of animals and also of other things, because there is nothing which moves the hearts of an audience more’.The author of the Song had learned his lessons well, as is clear in his depiction of the lord Edward:

‘Whereunto shall the noble Edward be compared? Perhaps he will be rightly called a leopard.... A lion by pride and fierceness, he is by inconstancy and changeableness a pard, changing his words and promise, cloaking himself by pleasant speech.’

The author might have chosen any number of beasts to describe the heir to the throne. But he picked the very one depicted on the royal flag and shield, with which Edward would have ridden into battle at Lewes. The author played on the ambiguity of the Angevin emblem: Edward shared some characteristics with the lion (courage and pride) but not honour. In order to hammer home his point, the poet invented characteristics for the pard. This mythical beast was known (according to Isidore of Seville) for its swiftness and ability to bring down its prey with a single leap. But here the pard is also faithless – a foil for the poet’s hero, Simon de Montfort, who refuses to abandon his oath to the Provisions of Oxford and would ‘flee neither torment nor death, for the sake of truth’.

An example of Edward I's seal held at Salisbury Cathedral

Ultimately, it was Edward who was to have the last word. At the Battle of Evesham, in 1265, he ordered that Montfort be hunted down and butchered on the battlefield, his corpse dismembered. The great seal of Edward I was to show the three lions/leopards in detail, not only on the king’s shield but also on his horse’s battledress, while elsewhere Edward was depicted before a splendid cloth of state strewn with golden lions/leopards on gules.

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[1] N. C. Vincent, ‘The seals of King Henry II and his court’, in Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, ed. P. Schofield (Oxford, 2015), 7-33, at 18. 

Democracy Day - 750 years since Simon de Montfort's 1265 parliament

Westminster Abbey Chapter House

Magna Carta Project members appeared on BBC radio and television this week as part of BBC's Democracy Day (20 January) - a series of commemorations inspired by the anniversary of Simon de Montfort's famed parliament of 1265. Commemorations began on 19 January, when Louise Wilkinson appeared on Woman's Hour to talk about Eleanor de Montfort, wife of Simon de Montfort and sister of Henry III. Louise explained Eleanor's perspective on events and her role in the politics of the period. You can listen to this episode of Woman's Hour here, via the BBC website. 

On the same day, the BBC website published an article to which David Carpenter contributed: 'Simon de Montfort: The turning point for democracy that gets overlooked', explaining the significance of the 1265 parliament. You can read David's comments here. He contributed to an article giving a Welsh perspective on events, was interviewed for BBC Wales television and appeared on Good Morning Wales. He also gave live interviews for the BBC international service, as well as for BBC Arabic and Persian. David was also featured on Australian SBS Wolrd News. Later he also spoke on Hereford and Worcester local radio and on the Mark Forrest Show, which goes out across BBC local radio. You can view a video that David made for UK Parliament at Westminster Abbey Chapter House here. 

Sophie Ambler gave live interviews in Westminster Hall on BBC Breakfast, and also appeared in a special feature for BBC Parliament and Daily Politics, a radio version of which was also aired on the Today Programme. She also contributed a guest blog for the History of Parliament, which was featured on the Guardian live politics blog.

You can read Sophie's feature on Simon de Montfort's 1265 parliament, in which Magna Carta was confirmed, on the Magna Carta Project website, as well as David's recent article showcasing a new discovery about the changes made to Magna Carta by Montfort during the parliament. 

On the Feast of St Valentine, 1265: Simon de Montfort's parliament and Henry III's promise to keep Magna Carta

DAC does Henry III 

Today might be the feast of St Valentine but, on this day in 1265, Henry III’s heart must have turned cold. Held prisoner by Simon de Montfort, he stood humiliated in the chapter house of his beloved Westminster abbey while an announcement was made that he had sworn to subjugate himself to Montfort’s council. At the same time it was proclaimed that Henry had vowed to abide by Magna Carta. Whilst a royal promise to keep the Charter was nothing new (the 1225 issue of Magna Carta had been confirmed by Henry in 1237 and 1253), circumstances in 1265 made this occasion very different. Henry’s oath was not part of a mutual bargain between king and subjects, provided freely in return for a grant of taxation. Instead, it was extracted from him by force. Defeated on the field of battle at Lewes in May 1264, and held captive by the triumphant Montfort, now de facto ruler of England, the king had no choice but to endorse Magna Carta and the radical Montfortian constitution in the same breath.

Henry’s situation was all the more demeaning because the scene of his humiliation, Westminster abbey chapter house, was the very place Henry had built to profess the majesty of his rule. He had begun the rebuilding of Westminster abbey in 1245 (in honour of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor) and had personally overseen the design of the chapter house. Envisaging a venue where he would meet his nobles in parliament, the king had commissioned a lectern decorated with wrought iron and, possibly, gilding. Henry must have imagined himself making dignified speeches, stood on the magnificent tiled floor that bore his coat of arms, bathed in light from the house’s vast windows, surrounded by prelates and magnates who sat awed by his authority. Instead, the king stood dumb (if, in fact, he was there at all) while a rebellious subject announced on his behalf that the king was now subject to conciliar rule.

The history of Magna Carta is bound up with that of Westminster abbey. The old abbey had been a site for assemblies since the days of its founder, Edward the Confessor, and it was there in St. Katherine’s chapel that Magna Carta had been confirmed in 1237. The chapter house of the new abbey was built by the first king to govern under the Charter’s restrictions and was designed with the new modus vivendi for ruler and ruled in mind. Even if the events of 14 February 1265 showed that this relationship had been usurped by a more radical model, it was here in the chapter house that the importance of Magna Carta in the language of good government was confirmed.

Henry’s confirmation of Magna Carta in 1265 is discussed in a Feature of the Month on the Magna Carta Project website. For more on Henry’s chapter house, see: D. A. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III and the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey’, in R. Mortimer (ed.), Westminster Abbey Chapter House: The History, Art and Architecture of 'a Chapter House Beyond Compare' (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 2010), 32-9