Montfort

Simon de Montfort, the founder of England's Parliament, was the greatest knight and foremost military strategist of his time. Friend of Saint Louis, thorn in the side of the Plantagenets, he was chosen Viceroy by Prince Richard's crusaders and the Christian lords of Palestine. He served as Senechal of France for King Louis' heir, but rejected the Crown of England, championing instead the New Millennium of democracy preached by Dominican and Franciscan friars.Was he also to father of King Edward I? It was the gossip of the time, and there is some persuasive evidence.Montfort combines Katherine Ashe's new insights with novelistic skills that bring the 13th century vividly to life in all it's scope -- from jousts and battle scenes to the pageantry of royal progresses and glorious feasts, from medieval international banking to Crusade, troubadours and the Court of Love.The story of Simon de Montfort is dramatic, extreme, and the events are often astoundingly contradictory. Montfort provides a telling of the story that is a thrilling read for entertainment, and an intriguing speculation for the most devoted historian.This four volume series follows the known events, with support from a Historical Context section that includes citations of 13th century documents and other scholarly sources. Montfort employs fiction to thread the known history into a coherent speculation on how those dramatic, contradictory events could have happened.