Marsh, Epp. pp. 110, 129, 163). In June 1252 he accompanied his father to Gascony (ib. p. 129). When the king's half-brothers were expelled from England in 1258, Henry of Montfort secretly followed them to Boulogne and stirred up his father's friends to besiege them there (Matt. Paris, Chron. Majora, v. 703). On 1 Jan. 1259 he was in France with his father, and with his own hand wrote his father's will (Bémont, Simon de Montfort, App. p. 330). On 13 Oct. 1260 he and his brother Simon [see Montfort, Simon, the younger] were knighted by their cousin, the king's son Edward [see Edward I, king of England], and afterwards went with him to a tournament in France (Flores Hist. ii. 456). In January 1264 Henry was one of the deputies sent to represent the barons at the Mise of Amiens (Halliwell, Notes to Rishanger, p. 122). When the Mise was set aside he commanded a body of troops despatched to secure the Welsh border. On 28 Feb. he stormed and sacked Worcester (Ann. Worc. p. 448), and soon afterwards took Gloucester, but on Edward's approach he made a truce with him and retired to Kenilworth (Ann. Dunstable, pp. 227-8: cf. Rishanger, p. 21). With his brother Guy [q.v.] he led the van at the battle of Lewes, 14 May 1264 (Hemingford, i. 315). After the victory, on 28 May, he was made constable of Dover Castle, governor of the Cinque ports, and treasurer of Sandwich (Fœdera, i. i. 441). In this capacity he gained the nickname of "the wool-merchant," by enforcing the prohibition laid by the new government on the export of wool so strictly that he was accused of seizing the wool for his own profit (Ann. Wykes, pp. 158-9). As constable of Dover he had for some time the custody of his captive cousin Edward (ib. p. 153). He fought and fell at Evesham, 4 Aug. 1265, by his father's side, and was buried with him in the neighbouring abbey.
[Letters of Adam Marsh (Monumenta Franciscana, vol. i.); Matt. Paris, Chronica Majora; Flores Historiarum ('Matt. Westminster'), Ann. Dunstaple (Annales Monastici, vol. iii.), Ann. Worcester and Wykes (ib. vol. iv.), all in Rolls Series; Rishanger's Chronicle, ed. Halliwell (Camden Soc.); Walter of Hemingford (Engl. Hist. Soc.)]
MONTFORT, SIMON of, Earl of Leicester (1208?–1265), was son of Simon IV of Montfort l'Amaury (Normandy) and his wife Alice of Montmorency. The first lord of Montfort had owned nothing but a little castle on a "strong mount," halfway between Paris and Chartres, whence the family took its name. His son, Simon I, married the heiress of Evreux; their grandson, Simon III, married Amicia, daughter of Robert of Beaumont, third earl of Leicester. The fourth Earl of Leicester died childless in 1204 or 1205. In the partition of his inheritance between his two sisters the honour of Leicester fell to Anaicia's share, and, her husband and her eldest son being dead, devolved upon her second son, Simon IV of Montfort. John recognised him as "Earl of Leicester" in August 1206, but it does not appear that he was ever formally invested with the earldom, and in February 1207 John seized all the English estates of "Count Simon of Montfort" nominally for a debt which Simon owed him. They were restored a month later, but confiscated again before the end of the year. The Count of Montfort had been content to enter upon his patrimony, and also upon the Norman heritage of the Beaumonts, under the overlordship of Philip of France, and he had to pay the penalty laid upon all Norman barons having claims on both sides of the sea who took this course, the loss, of his English inheritance. He now threw in his lot wholly with France and with the party of ecclesiastical orthodoxy against which, in the person of Pope Innocent III, John was setting himself in opposition. In 1208 Simon became captain-general of the French forces in the crusade against the Albigensians, who were supported by John's brother-in-law, Raymond of Toulouse. Simon's skill, courage, energy, and ruthlessness carried all before him, and speedily made him master of all southern Gaul. He continued to style himself Earl of Leicester, and he seems to have kept up his communications with England and to have been an object of deep interest and admiration to his fellow-barons there, for in 1210 John was scared by a rumour that they were plotting to set up Simon of Montfort as king in his stead. One of the conditions required by the pope for reconciliation with John in 1213 was that Simon should be restored to his rights. This John at first refused, but in July 1215 he yielded so far as to give the honour of Leicester into the charge of Simon's nephew Ralf, earl of Chester, "for the benefit of the said Simon." In May 1216 Simon, having gone to Paris to collect fresh troops for his war with the Aragonese, and to settle the questions as to the disposal of the family heritage which had arisen owing to his mother's death, joined with the legate Gualo in endeavouring to dissuade Louis of France from his designs upon England (Robert of Auxerre, Rer. Gall. Scriptt. xviii. 283-4). The Leicester estates seem to have been still in the hands of Ralf when Simon was killed at the siege of Toulouse, 25 June 1218. After some
