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Henry of Almain

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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HENRY OF ALMAIN (1235-1271), so called from his father's German connexions, was the son of Richard, earl of Cornwall and king of the Romans. As a nephew of both Henry III. and Simon de Montfort he wavered between the two at the beginning of the Barons' War, but finally took the royalist side and was among the prisoners taken by Montfort at Lewes (1264). In 1268 he took the cross with his cousin Edward, who, however, sent him back from Sicily to pacify the unruly province of Gascony. Henry took the land route with the kings of France and Sicily. While attending mass at Viterbo (13 March 1271) he was attacked by Guy and Simon de Montfort, sons of Earl Simon, and foully murdered. This revenge was the more outrageous since Henry had personally exerted himself on behalf of the Montforts after Evesham. The deed is mentioned by Dante, who put Guy de Montfort in the seventh circle of hell.

See W. H. Blaauw's The Barons' War (ed. 1871); Ch. Bemont's Simon de Montfort (1884).