Henry III Captured: De Montfort Seizes Power at Lewes

Simon de Montfort's rebel army smashed King Henry III's forces on the chalk downs above Lewes on May 14, 1264, capturing both the king and his son Prince Edward in a battle that temporarily transferred power from the English crown to a revolutionary parliament. De Montfort, the king's brother-in-law and leader of the baronial opposition, had been demanding reforms to royal governance for years. When negotiation failed, he raised an army. The battle began at dawn when de Montfort's forces descended from the heights above Lewes. Henry's army was larger but poorly coordinated. Prince Edward, commanding the royalist right wing, routed the Londoners opposing him and pursued them for miles, taking himself out of the battle entirely. While Edward chased fleeing infantry, de Montfort's center and left overwhelmed the remaining royalist forces. Henry III himself was pulled from his horse and captured. De Montfort imposed the Mise of Lewes, an agreement that placed the king under the control of a council of barons. For the next fifteen months, de Montfort effectively ruled England. In January 1265, he summoned a parliament that included not only barons and clergy but also elected representatives from towns and counties. This was not the first English parliament, but it was the first to include commoners alongside nobility. The experiment ended violently. Prince Edward escaped captivity in May 1265 and rallied royalist forces. At the Battle of Evesham in August, de Montfort was killed, his body mutilated by royalist troops. Henry III was restored to power, and the baronial reforms were largely reversed. But de Montfort's parliament had established a precedent. Edward, when he became king in 1272, adopted the practice of summoning representatives from towns and shires, building the institutional foundation that evolved into the House of Commons.