CHAPTER XVIII. THE MURDER AT VITERBO. "It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood."-MACB. ONE more incident of a public nature, which connects the de Montforts for the last time with British history, and avowedly resulted from the events of the Barons' War, may fitly conclude these pages, and may be examined more circumstantially, as having attracted little notice, owing to its occurrence in a distant country. The active spirit of Prince Edward after all resistance had been crushed at home, sought indulgence in the interprise of the distant Crusade; and, with his brother Edmund and cousin Henry, he took the cross from the hands of Cardinal Ottoboni (1270). When to the congenial allurements of distant adventure, and the unbridled license of war, the piety of the times added release from debts and remission from sins, we must not wonder at the Prince being able to gather a party of enterprising companions' for this Crusade, though the now cooler judgment of others on this point has been already noticed. A century before, the popular chants of 1 "Earl of Gloucester." For a list of the crusading knights, who accompanied P. Edward, see Mr Hudson Turner's paper in Arch. Journ. Vol. vii. p. 46. It includes Roger de Leyburn, and 9 knights, Brian de Brampton, and 1 knight; Roger de Clifford, and 9 knights; Robert de Mounteny, and 2 knights; William FitzWarin, and 2 knights; Adam de Gesemuth, and 5 knights; Thomas de Clare, and 9 knights; Alan de Monte Alto and 1 knight; William de Huntercombe, and 2 knights; Walter de Percy, and 3 knights; William de Valence, and 19 knights; Richard de la Rokele, and 2 knights; Payne de Chaworth, and 5 knights; Robert Tipetot, and 5 knights; Hamon l'Estrange; Pr. Edmund, and Gilbert de Clare, E. of Gloucester, were to follow. Among those who now found this vent for their private restlessness, was one too powerful and vacillating to be safely left at home, the Earl of Gloucester. He had mainly contributed both to the rise and ruin of de Montfort, but, dissatisfied either with his share of reward, or with the utter disregard of all previous promises of constitutional reform, he had again resorted to arms against the King. He had even taken London', although too unstable to persist in any fixed line of conduct; he had afterwards submitted to the indignity of having the terms of his reconciliation referred to the Pope. His eldest son was accordingly required to be delivered up for three years to the Queen, or his castle of Tunbridge to Prince Henry, but by the wiser mediation of Prince Edward both these conditions had been remitted'. Before the return of Prince Edward from this expedition he was preceded by his cousin Prince Henry, who, in his journey through Italy, found himself at Viterbo at the same time with his two cousins, the disinherited exiles, Simon and Guy de Montfort. The narrow escape of Guy from sharing the fate of his father and brother at Evesham has been noticed, and the circumstance, as vaguely transmitted by the tradition of three centuries, seems to have given rise to the fine old ballad of "the Beggar of Bethnal Green," the noble father of "pretty Bessee." The rescue of "young Montfort, of courage so free," from the heaps of slain after a battle is there effected by a fair lady : : "Who seing young Montfort there gasping to lie, She saved his life through charitie." He was not long, however, in recovering from his wounds; and after an imprisonment, first at Windsor and then at Dover, had succeeded in escaping to the Continent by bribing his keeper and deceiving his guards. On his arrival in Italy as a soldier of fortune, he was seized by the Pope's orders as an excommunicated fugitive. Guy, however, possessed his father's military talent; and much as the Pope 1 On this occasion the mob attacked the King's palace, which must have been rebuilt since the fire of 1263, and is described thus, "quod in diversis regnis comparationem recipere dedignatur."-Wyke. 2 Woodstock, July 16, 1268.-Rymer. He married afterwards the Princess Joan, born at Acre during this Crusade. 3 T. Wyke. 4 Landino, Comment. Dante. hated the de Montforts, this advantage, urged by a powerful Prince, more than compensated for his ecclesiastical demerits. The French Prince, Charles d'Anjou, who had accepted the Sicilian crown' from the Pope's gift after Prince Edmund's resignation, procured the release of Guy de Montfort, in order to put under his command 800 French knights. With these Guy took possession of Florence on Easter-day, 1267', and was appointed his deputy-governor, when the Prince became Imperial Vicar in Tuscany. After this important service Guy greatly distinguished himself by his zeal for his master, contributing to his great victory over the rival king Corradino at Tagliacozzo, August 24, 1268, and was sent to reduce Sicily to his power. In this the French were successful, but they had introduced "worse evils than greater luxury" among the Italians; their military strength might have long enabled them to retain the island in their grasp, had not the cruelties of the army, unchecked by King or Pope, at length roused the people by their excess to the vengeance of the memorable Vespers : "Se mala signoria, che sempre ac cuora Li popoli soggetti, non avesse 1 His wife Beatrice is said to have urged his acceptance of it, ambitious of thus placing herself on a par with the three Queens her sisters. She entered Naples in great pomp as Queen "with magnificent gilded carriages and plenty of richly dressed damsels, to which spectacle the people there were quite unaccustomed.' -Ann. Muratori, 1266°. She died in 1267. 2 G. Villani. 3 Dante (Inf. 32. 116) alludes to his bribing Buoso da Duera, the General of the Ghibellines, in order to facilitate the passage of the French troops. Philip Count de Montfort, described as "a bold knight and ex Had not ill lording, which doth The people ever, in Palermo raised loud and long.-Cary's Transl. perienced in arms," had been entrusted with the government of Bigorre, in 1258, as deputy for the Earl of Leicester, who invited his people there to obey him "tam fideliter quam amicabiliter tanquam nobis." See Trésor des Chartes, p. 292. He was also actively employed under King Charles, and was in Sicily. He was the son of Philip, Lord of Ferte, Aleps and Castries in France, and Lord of Tyre in Syria, who was a first cousin of Simon, the great Earl of Leicester, and was among those who had invited him to supreme power at Jerusalem.-See p. 45, ante. Nangis, Muratori. 5 Il lusso e qualche cosa di peggio."-Muratori. He was rewarded, as others of his comrades were, with liberal grants of lands and baronies', and thus becoming Count of Nola, was high in trust and favour with King Charles. His brother Simon, as the elder son, had been looked up to by the partisans of his father as his successor in the guidance of the popular impulses; and, as has been seen, made some attempts to retrieve the fortunes of the party. A contemporary poet thus earnestly expresses his anxiety for him immediately after the battle of Evesham : "Priez tous, mes amis doux, le fitz Seinte Marie, Que l'enfant, her puissant meigne en bonne vie: Ore est oces, &c.1" Now all draw near, companions dear, That Montfort's heir his grace may share, And learn to heaven the way2. After the final overthrow of his house and party, Simon had joined his brother Guy in Italy, and they were both together at Viterbo in March, 12713. For two years after the death of Clement IV. (Nov. 29, 1269), a conclave of fifteen cardinals had been sitting in that city; and, as their tedious incubation had not yet produced a Pope, the interest attached to this election happened to attract there at the same time Philip, who had lately succeeded to the crown of France, Charles, King of Sicily, and the English Prince Henry, passing through Italy on their separate journeys. It adds to our interest in the untimely fate of Prince Henry to know that he had been recently married (March 6, 1 "Hebbe da lui molti stati nel regno."-L'historia di Casa Orsini da Fr. Sansovino, Ven. 1565, p. 62. Filiberto Campanile specifies Cicala, Atripalda, Furino, as given to Guy.See Dell' Armi dei Nobili, 2 edit. Napoli, 1618. 2 Lament de S. de Montfort, from MS. Cott. in W. Rish. Polit. Songs. The translation from Ellis' Anc. S. 3 Duchesne, Hist. Script. Norman Chr. Norm. dates this event 1257, and the battle of Lewes 1251. 4 Teobaldo de' Visconti of Piacenza, then Archdeacon of Liège, was ultimately chosen; he was, at the time, absent at Acre, with Prince Edward, who on his return visited his former comrade as Gregory X., at Rome, with a great suite (magnâ comitivâ).- Lansd. MSS. 397, 3. Gregory was elected Sept. 1, 1271, crowned Jan. 27, 1272, and died Jan. 10, 1276.-Nicholas' Chronol. |