Mirebeau, Jaffa, and Evesham

I hope it will be a good weekend for all of my readers. I am going to be busy doing some de-cluttering in preparation for more home renovations on Monday. But de-cluttering is oddly therapeutic and I think I’ll have fun. Life in the fast lane—no wonder people think writers lead such exciting, glamorous lives! Below is an old post for historical happenings on August 1st, with some changes or additions.

August 1st was a busy and bloody day in the MA. In 1192, Richard I fought and won the first battle of Jaffa, which I dramatized in Lionheart. It was a remarkable victory which did much to burnish the legend of the Lionheart. One military historian went so far as to describe it as the day that Richard rode into immortality! It seems to have been a lucky day for the Angevins, for ten years later, his brother John would have his one great military triumph on that same date.

On August 1st, 1202, John swooped down upon his nephew Arthur and the leading Breton barons as they lay siege to Eleanor in Mirebeau Castle. It was a brilliant accomplishment, which I dramatized in Here Be Dragons. Sadly, he tarnished his triumph and his reputation by treating the prisoners very badly, which stirred up much resentment against him. It is generally believed that he was responsible for Arthur’s murder the following year; it was certainly the view of his contemporaries and he never fully recovered from that.

But if August 1st was a good day for the Angevins, it was a disastrous day for the de Montforts. On this day in August, 1265, young Simon (renamed Bran in my novels to save me from ever having to write: Simon said to Simon) and his men were taking their ease at Kenilworth Castle, bathing in the lake and entertaining themselves with the prostitutes that inevitably flocked to a medieval army. His cousin Edward was warned of this by a female spy, and staged an unusual night march to take Bran by surprise. Edward then collected Bran’s banners and headed for Evesham. Simon was expecting Bran’s arrival and when he first saw the banners in the distance, he assumed it was his son. When he went up into the bell tower of Evesham’s abbey and realized that he was looking at his doom, he faced it unflinchingly, giving us one of history’s better exit lines: “We must commend our souls to God, for our bodies are theirs.” Meanwhile, back at Kenilworth, Bran collected what was left of his scattered army and raced for Evesham. He arrived too late; the battle was over. One chronicler would comment, “Such was the murder of Evesham, for battle it was none.” But Bran got there just in time to see his father’s head on a pike. Once again reality trumps fiction, for what writer would dare to make something like that up?