the town of Evesham, and while they were oc-
cupying themselves there with refreshing their
souls, which had been long fainting under hun-
ger and thirst, with a little food, their scouts
brought them word that the lord Edward and his
army were not above two miles off. So the earl
of Leicester and the barons marching out with
their lord the king (whom they took with them
by force) to the rising ground of a gentle hill,
beheld Edward and his army on the top of a hill,
not above a stone’s throw from them, and has-
tening to them. And a wonderful conflict took
place, there being slain on the part of the lord
Edward only one knight of moderate prowess,
and two esquires. On the other side there fell on
the field of battle Simon, earl of Leicester, whose
head, and hands, and feet were cut off, and
Henry, his son, Hugh Despenser, justiciary of En-
gland, Peter de Montfort, William de Mandev-
ille, Radulph Basset, Roger St. John, Walter de
Despigny, William of York, and Robert Tregos,
all very powerful knights and barons, and be-
sides all the guards and warlike cavalry fell in the
battle, with the exception of ten or twelve nobles,
who were taken prisoners. And the names of the
nobles who were wounded and taken prisoners
were as follows: Guy de Montfort, son of the earl
of Leicester John Fitz-John, Henry de Hastings,
Humphrey de Peter de Montfort the younger,
Bohun the younger, John de Vescy, and Nicholas
de Segrave.In the end, the Provisions of Westminster that had been
rejected were included in another edict, the Statute of
Marlborough (1267). Five years later, Henry III died, to
be succeeded by Edward I.
References: Prothero, George Walter, The Life of Simon
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, with Special Reference to the
Parliamentary History of His Time (London: Longmans,
Green, and Company, 1877); Maddicott, J. R., Simon de
Montfort (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press,
1996); Hutton, William Holden, ed., Simon de Mont-
fort & His Cause, 1251–1266: Extracts from the Writings
of Robert of Gloucester, Matthew Paris, William Rishanger,
Thomas of Wykes, etc. (London: D. Nutt, 1888); Beamish,
Sir Tufton Victor Hamilton, Battle Royal: A New Account
of Simon de Montfort’s Struggle against King Henry III (Lon-
don: F. Muller, 1965); Treharne, Reginald Francis, The
Personal Role of Simon de Montfort in the Period of Baronial
Reform and Rebellion, 1238–65 (London: Cumberlage,
1954); Hutton, the Rev. W. H., Simon de Montfort & His
Cause, 1251–1266 (London: David Nutt, 1888); Mat-
thew of Westminster, The Flowers of History, edited by C.
D. Yonge II (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853); “Montfort,
Simon de, Earl of Leicester,” in The Oxford Companion to
Military History, edited by Richard Holmes (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 598.Montgomery, Bernard Law, first viscount
Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976)
British field marshal
Bernard Law Montgomery was born in London on
17 November 1887, the fourth of nine children of the
Reverend Henry Montgomery and his wife Maude (née
Farrar) Montgomery. When Bernard was two, his father
was named as the bishop of Tasmania, and that same
year the entire family moved to Hobart, New Zealand,
where, he later wrote, “Certainly I can say that my own
childhood was unhappy.” In 1901 the family returned
to England, where Bernard finished his education at the
private St. Paul’s School in London. His elder brother
Harold served in the British army, seeing action in the
last months of the Boer War, and this may have per-
suaded Bernard to join the army himself. In January
1907, he entered the Royal Military Academy at Sand-
hurst, after which he was commissioned into the Royal
Warwickshire Regiment, stationed in Peshwar, India.
In 1914, when the First World War began, the
Warwickshires were sent to France as part of the Brit-
ish Expeditionary Force (BEF). There Montgomery
saw action in several battles, including at Le Cateau (26
August 1914) and at the first battle of Ypres (13 Octo-
ber 1914), where he was wounded. He was awarded the
Distinguished Service Order (DSO), promoted to the
rank of captain, and, after recovering from his wounds,
sent back to France, seeing action at the Somme (Janu-
ary 1916). He served in two staff appointments, with
the 33rd Division from January 1917 and with IX Corps
from July 1917. In June 1918, he was promoted to bre-
vet major, ending the war with that rank.
After the war, Montgomery attended the Staff Col-
lege at Camberly in 1920, followed by service in Ireland
fighting the organization known as the Irish Republican
Army (IRA). In 1926, he returned to the Staff CollegemontgomeRy, beRnARD lAw, FiRSt viScount montgomeRy oF AlAmein