Plunder like Pirates

 

On 30 May 1266 a peace was concluded at Winchelsea, one of the Cinque Ports on the southern coast of England. 

After the battle of Evesham, the rebel forces in the southeast were concentrated at Winchelsea and Sandwich. The barons of the Ports were motivated by support of Simon de Montfort's widow, Countess Eleanor, and the fruits of piracy. Over the winter months of 1265/66 they sailed out to attack commercial shipping in the Channel, seizing vessels and even plundering the coast of Brittany. 

Henry III sent his son, Lord Edward, and Roger Leyburn to reduce the Ports. A string of military operations followed, combined with Edward's campaign against Simon de Montfort junior in Lincolnshire. 

Finally, in March 1266, the royalists were able to launch a combined land-sea assault on Winchelsea. On 24 March the town was stormed with great loss of life; many of the defenders were killed as Edward's shock troops forced the gates, others drowned as they attempted to escape by sea. Edward pardoned the surviving townsfolk and forbade his men from plundering the town, 'as if they were pirates'. A town that refused quarter was usually sacked without mercy, but it made little sense to destroy one of England's richest ports. 

Via the final agreement, the barons of the Ports were permitted to have their lands, houses and chattels, as well as their traditional rights and liberties. This marked a dramatic change in royalist policy: in the immediate aftermath of Evesham, Henry had ordered the disinheritance of all surviving rebels. 

This, inevitably, triggered a backlash and another round of civil war. After months of bitter fighting, the royalists were forced to change their tune. The alternative was endless conflict.

Amaury de Montfort, Caliph of Baghdad

 

Amaury de Montfort was released from custody on 21 April 1282, after six years in prison. In that time he was moved about from Corfe castle, to Sherborne, and finally to Taunton.

The timing of his release is odd. His gaoler, Edward I, was not usually inclined to let his enemies slip away. The king had previously refused to listen to any plea to let Amaury go. Everyone from the Pope to the Queen of France to the Archbishop of Canterbury had begged and pleaded on Amaury's behalf, to no avail.

Furthermore, Amaury was released barely a month after the Palm Sunday revolt in Wales. Edward had always regarded the alliance between the Montforts and Prince Llywelyn of Wales as a clear and present danger. To let Amaury walk, at such a time, was a potential risk. Yet walk he did.

There were conditions attached, of course. Amaury was only liberated after swearing an oath to leave the realm and never return. He immediately went to France and on 22 May wrote to Edward from Arras, sarcastically 'thanking' the king for his grace, promising fidelity, and asking permission to recover his rights and titles in England.

The king refused. Unabashed, in 1284 Amaury tried to sue in the court of Rome against Edward's brother, Edmund, for the restoration of his inheritance. The lawsuit got nowhere, but even in 1289, when he made his will, Amaury was still calling himself 'earl of Leicester by hereditary right, and palatine of Chester, and steward of England'.

Amaury's use of these titles recalls an old Tsar of Bulgaria, Symeon, when he called himself Emperor of Rome. As the actual emperor remarked, Symeon could call himself Caliph of Baghdad if he wished. It made no odds. Power was the only fact.

The trials of Angharad (1)

 

Angharad ferch Owain ap Maredudd of Cydewain was an important Welsh noblewoman of the late 13th century. Along with Margaret of Bromfield, Llywelyn the Last's unjustly neglected sister, her actions had a significant influence on Welsh politics, and the fate of the principality. 

Her dynastic connections were important: Angharad was a great-granddaughter of Llywelyn Fawr, and married Owain ap Maredudd (died 1275), a powerful lord of Ceredigion and descendent of the Lord Rhys of Dinefwr. Thus, Angharad linked the rival houses of north and south Wales. She and her first husband, Owain, had one son, Llywelyn. This was an unusual name for the royal house of Deheubarth, and probably in honour of Anghard's kinship with Llywelyn Fawr and Llywelyn the Last.

Her son (died 1309) was the only ruler of Ceredigion to survive the upheavals of the conquest of Wales: he became a minor Marcher lord, holding lands that eventually passed to Owain Glyn Dwr.

Llywelyn owed his survival to his mother, who spent her adult life fighting bitterly for her rights in court, just as the men fought on the battlefield. Her legal career was very similar to that of Margaret of Bromfield. Neither woman had any qualms about challenging powerful Marcher lords, or the Prince of Wales, or even the King of England.