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Simon de Montfort came back in 1263, told you so. He was invited back by the barons who had now stopped arguing among
themselves and decided Henry wasn’t listening to them, which was probably correct. This resulted in another civil war. The King and his son Edward were on one
side while Simon de Montfort, his toys restored, and the barons were on the other.
In May 1264 Simon won a great victory at Lewes in Sussex and
captured Henry and his son. Simon was now in charge in England and set up a power council of which he was, of course, the leader. Then he called what was
really the first ever Parliament. The assembly, because it wasn’t called a parliament at the time, had 2 knights from each county and 2 elected members from
each borough, a borough being a bit like the old “hundreds” the Anglo-Saxons had.
However his fellow barons thought all these reforms were going a bit quick and, even worse, Prince Edward escaped. Edward succeeded in getting an
army together with all the people who supported the King. Remember a lot of the fighting was done by the ordinary peasants and they would most likely have
supported the King against the barons. After all they paid their taxes to the barons not directly to the King so the extra taxes required would seem to have
been asked for by those nasty barons.
De Montfort formed his own army and intended to meet up with another one led by his son at Evesham in Surrey. He saw that army approaching, he
could tell as his son’s banner was flying high among the troops but he got a big shock. Sneaky little Edward had ambushed that army, captured the banner and
was carrying it among his own troops. The trick worked, Simon de Montfort lost and was killed and Henry was back on the throne but he was getting old and had
been ruling for over 50 years. The rest of the reign was occupied by resolving the problems created by the rebellion. Henry deprived de Montfort's supporters
of their lands, but the 'disinherited' fought back until terms were agreed in 1266 for former rebels to buy back their lands. The Statute, which roughly means
law, of Marlborough in 1267 sorted things a bit more. In it, the King promised to uphold the Magna Carta and some of the Provisions of Westminster.
By 1270, the country was sufficiently settled for Henry's son, Edward, to set off on a crusade, the ninth.
Forward to 1272AD
