Malice and suspicion

 

In 1273 King Hugh Lusignan of Cyprus lost control of his chief mainland fief of Beirut in the Holy Land. This was due to the marriage of the heiress, Isabella d'Ibelin, to Hamo Lestrange. Hamo was one of the followers of Lord Edward, and had come to Palestine in the company of the future king. He was a lord of the March in Wales, and like his master had earned a reputation for courage and cruelty. The Westminster chronicler gave Hamo a spectacular write-up: 

“...a man of the greatest notoriety as a plunderer, who, although he had often borne himself gallantly in the shock of battle, nevertheless, in consequence of his tyrannical cruelty, deservedly received the brand of Traso, instead of his name of Tyro”. 

Traso was derived from the Greek 'Thrasos', the personified concept of boldness in both positive and negative terms; it can mean courage or over-boldness or insolence. When Thrasos appears as a personified form in Greek legend, it as a malicious and suspicious being, mentioned together with Hybris (hubris) and Atë, the goddess of mischief, delusion and ruin. Euripides described Thrasos as an irresistible, unconquerable, unholy spirit. Tyro, by contrast, means a recruit or novice. 

The marriage was probably Edward's initiative, to forge closer links between the Latin realms of Acre and Beirut. It was also at the instigation of Isabella, who was in trouble with the Pope. She was carrying on an affair with Julian of Sidon, a notorious rake who had previously distinguished himself by murdering a Mongol warlord, and then running away when the Mongols came for revenge. While he played with Isabella, Julian was already married to Euphemia, daughter of the King of Armenia. 

Two successive popes, Urban IV and Clement IV, were so enraged by the scandal they issued two papal letters, Audi filia et and De sinu patris, which condemned noblemen and noblewomen for inappropriate behaviour. Isabella was urged to remarry or burn in Hell. There was also the problem of incest: Julian was the grandson of Balian of Ibelin, while Isabella was Balian's great-great granddaughter. To save herself from Rome, Isabella put aside her lover and agreed to marry Hamo. 

When Edward left the Holy Land, Hamo chose to stay in Beirut with his new wife. He must have found the splendour and exotic surroundings of the Holy Land a very far cry from the damp, rainswept Marches of Wales. Whatever his flaws, Hamo must have loved Isabella, even at the risk of his faith. In 1273, about a year after Edward's departure, Hamo fell mortally ill. On his deathbed he was informed that King Hugh of Cyprus was planning to seize his widow. Hugh's plan was obvious: get hold of Isabella, marry her off to some crony, and thus re-establish direct control of Beirut. 

To prevent this, Hugh took a drastic step. Shortly before he died, he placed Isabella in the care of none other than Baybars, the all-conquering Mamluk sultan, whom Hamo had come to Palestine to fight. It says much for the Lusignans that a Frankish noble would rather place his widow in the hands of an Islamic warlord. 

Baybars was happy to accept. The sultan has a brutal reputation, but in this case he did no more than was asked of him. After Hamo's death, King Hugh pounced and tried to carry off Isabella to Cyprus. Baybars at once cited the pact and demanded her return. The High Court of Cyprus gave the king no support, and he was obliged to send Isabella back to Beirut, where a Mamluk guard was installed to protect her. 

However, King Hugh got his way in the end. The death of Baybars in 1277 removed that obstacle, and then Isabella herself died in 1282. Beirut passed to her sister, Eschiva, the wife of Humphrey de Montfort, a loyal support of the King of Cyprus. 

Pretend horses

 

Kenilworth castle

In July 1265 Simon de Montfort the younger abandoned his futile siege of Pevensey and went to London. His purpose was to raise a new army to rescue his father, trapped in Wales on the wrong side of the Severn. According to Thomas Wykes, Simon assembled sixteen standard bearers and a 'countless multitude of warriors'. 

However, instead of rushing to his father's aid, Simon chose to attack Winchester. On 16 July his men gained entry 'through a certain window in the monastery of St Swithin'. These 'accomplices of Satan' sacked the town, killing citizens and plundering churches. 

Afterwards, loaded with spoil, Simon's army moved on to Oxford, Northampton and finally Kenilworth. His strategy was to distract the forces of Lord Edward, based at Worcester, so Simon could get over the Severn and join his father at Hereford. 

Edward's position was roughly equidistant between Hereford and Kenilworth (24 and 34 miles respectively). He had to knock out one of the Montfortian armies before they could link up. Combined, they would have parity with the royal army, or even outnumber it. 

An important source for what followed is the Evesham Chronicle, recently translated by Tony Spicer. The original manuscript was written by a monk of Evesham abbey sometime between 1265 and 1279. It no longer exists, but five later copies survive. Of these, manuscript B is the most complete. The chronicle is separate to the 'Last Hours' account, discovered in 2000, but similar in detail. Thus, we effectively have two contemporary local accounts of the war in summer 1265. 

The Evesham account clears up the puzzle over Edward's movements in late July. According to Wykes, Edward set out on a feigned march to Shrewsbury on 3 August, then turned round and marched through the night to Evesham. This is generally accepted to be impossible, being an over-elaborate deception that would have given the prince's tired army another 4 miles or so to march. 

Rather neatly, the Evesham chronicle places Edward's feigned march a few days earlier, before his attack on Kenilworth. Quote: 

“For, about the Festival of James the Apostle [25 July], Edward the king's firstborn and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and the other country magnates who were present at Worcester, feigned their journey towards Shrewsbury and sent the caparisons with their foot soldiers as a deception”. 

These details, written by a local scribe, are convincing. A caparison was a cloth covering laid over a horse for protection. So, it appears Edward split his army and sent off his infantry with the caparisons; this in turn conjures the image of his soldiers running about the countryside, pretending to be horses. That would certainly be a distraction. 

Meanwhile Edward and his knights veered off on the road that led towards Kenilworth. Several chroniclers state that he had a number of 'clever spies' in the Montfortian camp. Among these, according to Walter of Guisborough, was a very interesting lady named Margoth: 

“...his spy Margoth who although a woman was however dressed in male clothing so that she could pass as a man...” 

Tell us more about Margoth, Walter! Alas, she is never heard of again. 

Big shoe

 

Following up my posts on Meurig ap Dafydd, the leader of the Welsh revolt in Gwent in 1294-5. I started posting on this man a couple of weeks, but didn't have time to finish before going on holiday. Oops.

To recap: Meurig was a burgess of Abergavenny and royal tax collector, chosen by the local Welsh as their leader during the revolt that swept over Wales at this time. While Morgan ap Maredudd attacked the lands and castles of Gilbert de Clare in Glamorgan, Meurig's army laid siege to Abergavenny. The revolt in Gwent was shattered in mid-February, when Humphrey de Bohun broke the siege, slaughtered Meurig's followers and devastated their lands. Bohun remained in the south-east until the summer, when Edward I came to Brecon on 16 June. By that point the revolt was well and truly over.

Meurig's fate is unknown, and he might well have been killed in the fighting over the spring. The king's postwar settlement of Gwent was not straightforward. On 21 June he granted John Hastings, lord of Gwent, the forfeitures of all Welshmen and tenants lately in arms against the king. These men, presumably the surviving rebels, had recently been admitted to the peace. However, the grant then states the Welsh are permitted their lives and limbs and lands and tenements. This left Hastings with the option of imposing fines, except the king also reserved the right to mitigate or cancel any fines, if they seemed too grievous.

Hastings was thus left with the option of throwing a shoe at the Welsh, so long as it wasn't a big shoe. Curiously, the entire grant was then cancelled altogether. Now Hastings didn't even have a shoe.

The cancelled grant was followed by a string of further royal instructions, which make for interesting reading. In 1297 the Welshries of Morgannwg and Brecon were granted various charters of liberties: these included the respite of fines imposed upon them for the recent revolt – the communities of Miskin and Senghenydd were exempted in this way – and the grant of the laws and customs of their ancestors.

As Rees Davies (pictured) noted, the king was turning the aftermath of the revolt to his advantage, and exploiting it to drive a wedge between the Marcher lords and the Welshry on their estates.