The Mise of Amiens

Condolences to my fellow Green Bay fans, but congrats to Atlanta and NE fans. Good luck to all getting nasty weather today like our Nor’easter. January 23rd was not a good day for English history either, for the King of France managed to make the battles of Lewes and Evesham inevitable with his Mise of Amiens judgment, in which he absolved Henry III from the oath he’d sworn to obey the Provisions of Oxford, which had circumscribed some of his royal power. It seems very naïve that Simon de Montfort and the barons could have expected the French king to rule against a fellow king, one who was also his brother-in-law. But naiveté was not one of Simon’s personality traits, so they must have agreed to submit their quarrel to the French king out of sheer desperation, a last ditch effort to avoid bloodshed. Think of it as a political Hail Mary pass, but unless you’ve got Aaron Rodgers holding the football, they rarely succeed. In this case, war soon followed.