ustices and ministers. England was
now the hunting-ground of any well-born Frenchmen anxious for a wider
career than they could obtain at home.[1] Among the foreigners attracted
to England to prosecute legal claims or to seek the royal bounty came
Simon of Montfort, the second son of the famous conqueror of the
Albigenses. Amice, the mother of the elder Simon, was the sister and
heiress of Robert of Beaumont, the last of his line to hold the earldom
of Leicester. After Amice's death her son used the title and claimed the
estates of that earldom. But these pretensions were but nominal, and
since 1215 Randolph of Chester had administered the Leicester lands as
if his complete property. However, Amaury of Montfort, the Count of
Toulouse's eldest son, ceded to his portionless younger brother his
claims to the Beaumont inheritance, and in 1230 Simon went to England to
push his fortunes. Young, brilliant, ambitious and attractive, he not
only easily won the favour of the king, but commended himself so well to
Earl Randolph that in 1231 the aged earl was induced to relax his grasp
on the Leicester estates. In 1239 the last formalities of investiture
were accomplished. Amaury renounced his claims, and after that Simon
became Earl of Leicester and steward of England. A year before that he
had secured the great marriage that he had long been seeking. In
January, 1238, he was wedded to the king's own sister, Eleanor, the
childless widow of the younger William Marshal. Simon was for the moment
high in the affection of his brother-in-law. To the English he was
simply another of the foreign favourites who turned the king's heart
against his born subjects.

[1] This is well illustrated by Philip de Beaumanoir's
well-known romance, _Jean de Dammartin et Blonde d'Oxford_ (ed.
by Suchier, Soc. des anciens Textes francais, and by Le Roux de
Lincy, Camden Soc.).

In 1238 Peter des Roches died. With all his faults the Poitevin was an
excellent administrator at Winchester,[1] and left his estates in
such a prosperous condition that Henry coveted the succession for the
bishop-elect of Valence, though William already had the prospect of the
prince-bishopric of liege. But the monks of St. Swithun's refused to
obey the royal order, and Henry sought to obtain his object from the
pope. Gregory gave William both Liege and Winchester, but in 1239 death
ended his restless plans. William's death left more room for his
kinsfolk and fo