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his support and Montfort was obliged to withdraw to
London.67 In spite of the influence of the Earl of Gloucester
as lord of the castle of Tonbridge and other great estates in the
county, and the solid opposition of the Cinque Ports, the king’s army
marched through Kent, spoiling the lands not only of foes but of others
who had remained neutral.68
The lands of those who were against the king at the siege were taken
into the king’s hands.69 The property of the unfortunate
men who had been impressed to serve at the siege of Rochester and to man
the castle of Dover was at the same time confiscated and in some cases
the men were hanged. Many citizens of London who had property in the
county were also dispossessed whether they had taken part in the
rebellion or not. Earl Warenne encamped his army about his castle of
Lewes, where on 14 May 1264 the disastrous battle was fought.70
Kent was again overrun by the baronial party, and the lands already
taken by the royalists were again seized. The secession of the Earl of
Gloucester from Montfort’s party early in 1265 gave the royalists in
the county some relief. His castle of Tonbridge was betrayed to Simon de
Montfort the younger and Sir John de la Haye by Roger de Forte, one of
its garrison. After the battle, Dover was committed to Henry de
Montfort, and Prince Edward was kept a prisoner there. Montfort was
joined by his mother the Countess of Leicester, and they held out for a
time after the battle of Evesham, surrendering finally to Edward on 28
October 1265.
Even after the defeat and death of Montfort at Evesham, the Cinque Ports
still held out against the king (except Dover, which Prince Edward
captured after a siege in 1265) ;71 and when deprivation of their
estates drove the vanquished and disinherited party into revolt, Simon,
the son of the dead earl, joined himself to the ports. The frays
constantly occurring between the Cinque Ports mariners and those of
Normandy involved Edward I in disputes with the French king, who
summoned him to answer for their piracy in January 1294. The English
seamen, who had won a complete victory over the French in an engagement
in the Channel on 15 May 1293, defied Edward’s threats of punishment
and attempts to procure redress, and these frays continued until the
outbreak of the French war, when the task of aiding in the defence of
the coast devolved upon the Cinque Ports. In the attempted invasion of
England by the French, Dover was sacked and burnt in 1295 by the French
admiral, Matthew of Montmorenci ;72 an insult which the English avenged
by burning Cherbourg.
In 1312, the Earl of Gloucester was put in charge 73 of Kent,
Surrey and Sussex by the baronial party, and in the same year Edward II
visited Dover, where he strengthened the fortifications of the castle
and took oaths of fealty
67 For the original material regarding the condition of Kent at this
time see Cal. Pat. 1258-66 and Cal. Inq. Misc. I, Nos.
719 to 768 and 1024.
68 Henry captured Tonbridge Castle on May 1, and later appealed in vain
to the Cinque Ports for a naval
force to attack London (Blaauw, Barons’ War, 133).
69 Cal. Pat. 1258-66, p. 3 15-6.
70 The day after the battle, Prince Edward and the king of the Romans
were surrendered as hostages to the Earl of Montfort, and were confined
in Dover Castle. Rishanger, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 30.
71 This capture was the more important that Richard and Amaury de
Montfort, who had sailed from Dover to enlist foreign mercenaries, had
intended to land there. Green, History of the English People, i,
317. Rishanger, op. cit. 47.
72 Ibid 150.
73 Chron. Edw. I and Edw. II (Rolls Ser.), i, 203. |