De Montfort, always professing to act in the name of the king, stigmatised the queen's forces as aliens, increased the daily pay of his own soldiers from 3d. to 4d.,[1] assembled a fleet off Sandwich "for the defence of the kingdom," and obtained a loan to fit out ships and pay seamen.[2] And all this in spite of the fact that the queen was coming to rescue the king from duress. Sir Thomas de Multon was appointed "Captain and Keeper of the Sea and Sea-coast"; and, that the attention of the Cinque Ports, which had quarrel pending with Yarmouth, might not be distracted, De Montfort promised them that, as soon as the disturbances of the realm were settled, the king would cause compensation to be made to them for the injuries which the burgesses of Yarmouth had caused them.[3]
Unhappily, Eleanor's wifely devotion produced no results. Her flotilla was detained by contrary winds until, her funds being exhausted, she could no longer pay her troops, who thereupon quitted her.[4] But, in a short time, the defection of some of De Montfort's supporters, and the escape from imprisonment of Prince Edward, put the royalist party in England into better heart, and, by the victory of Evesham, the authority of Henry was restored. Yet it was thenceforth wielded chiefly through the intervention of Prince Edward, until the latter, taking advantage of the cessation of the French war, departed in 1270 on a Crusade.[5]
He appears to have sailed from Portsmouth, with thirteen[6] ships, early in August, and he reached Aiguesmortes, near Montpellier, about September 29th. There he may have learnt of the death, at Tunis on August 25th, of his ally, Saint Louis, for on October 3rd he left Aiguesmortes for that place, touching on the way in Sardinia, and meeting the new King of France, Philip III., about October 14th.[7] The combined expedition went to Sicily, and wintered there. A storm off Trepani did much damage to the French, Spanish, and Sicilian squadrons, but none to the English.[8] In the following spring, Prince Edward sailed for the Holy Land,
- ↑ Close Rolls, 48 Hen. III. m. 4.
- ↑ Ib., 48 Hen. III. m. 4d.
- ↑ Pat. Rolls, 48 Hen. III.
- ↑ Wikes (Gale), 63.
- ↑ A truce for five years had been concluded with France in September, 1269.—'Fœdera,' i. 482.
- ↑ Hemingford, 589.
- ↑ Hemingford and Matt. Paris.
- ↑ 'Gesta Phil. III.' (Duchesne) v. 522; Matt. of West. 400.
