Note (43) — Chapter II
Reading edition
Let us take a Latin, a French, and an English specimen of the poems in which Simon’s death was lamented and his intercession implored.
“Salve, Symon Montis Fortis, Totius flos militiæ, Durus pœnas passus mortis, Protector gentis Angliæ. Sunt de sanctis inaudita Cunctis passis in hac vita, Quemquam passum talia; Manus, pedes, amputari, Caput, corpus, vulnerari, Abscidi virilia. Sis pro nobis intercessor Apud Deum, qui defensor In terris exstiteras.”—(Political Songs, 124.)
The French poem which follows directly in the collection is too long to copy in full. This is perhaps the most remarkable stanza, in which we again find the comparison with Thomas of Canterbury:—
“Mès par sa mort, le cuens Mountfort conquist la victorie, Come ly martyr de Caunterbyr, finist sa vie; Ne voleit pas li bon Thomas qe perist seinte Eglise, Le cuens auxi se combati, e morust sauntz feyntise. Ore est ocys la flur de pris, qe taunt savoit de guerre, Ly quens Montfort, sa dure mort molt emplorra la terre.”
In this poem there is not, as in the Latin one, any direct prayer to the martyred Earl, but in the last stanza we read:—
“Sire Simoun ly prodhom, e sa compagnie, En joie vont en ciel amount, en pardurable vie.”
The only English piece on these wars belongs to an earlier date, namely, the satirical poem against King Richard, how the one English Augustus
“Makede him a castel of a mulne post;”
but we get verses on Simon’s death in the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (ii. 559):—
“& sir Simond was aslawe, & is folk al to grounde, More murÞre are nas in so lute stounde. Vor Þere was werst Simond de Mountfort aslawe, alas! & sir Henri is sone, Þat so gentil knizt was. ****** & among alle oÞere mest reuÞe it was ido, Þat sir Simon Þe olde man demembred was so.”
He then goes on with the details of the dismemberment, of which a picture may be seen opposite p. 254 of Mr. Blaauw’s book, and then goes on with the lines which I have before quoted:—
“Suich was Þe morÞre of Eivesham (vor bataile non it was), And Þer wiÞ Jesu Crist wel vuele ipaied was, As he ssewede bitokninge grisliche and gode, As it vel of him sulue, Þo he deide on Þe rode, Þat Þoru al Þe middelerd derk hede Þer was inou.”