Welcome to the History Extra Podcast, Fascinating Historical Conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. The 13th century nobleman Simon de Monfort

has gone down in history for two main reasons. Number one that he was the

first leader of a political movement in English history that sought

to overthrow the monarchy, in his case King Henry III in favour of a different system.

And two, that his body was horribly dismembered after his defeat at the Battle of Yvesham in 1265. Today we're

going to focus on the second of those two points. Not only were

de Montfort's head and testicles sent to the wife of one of his killers, but

his butchered hands and feet were also spread far and wide across Britain.

Historian Sophie Theresa Ambler explains to David Musgrove why DeMonfort met such a grisly end.

And what it tells us about the politics of medieval England and Britain.

I'm with Dr. Sophie Ambler and we are discussing what happened to the body of Simon de Montfort

after his defeat at the Battle of Eveham on the 4th of August 1265 so this

podcast will have some gruesome elements to it be warmed.

Sophie, in brief, what happened to Simon de Monf's body

after the Battle of Eisham?

Well, his body was

a seized upon by the death squad of men who were responsible for killing him so this was

barons of the Anglo-W Welsh borderlands and they set about dismembering his

body so they cut off his head and his testicles and by one

account stuffed the testicles into his mouth by another draped them over his

nose and the head and testicles were sent back as a present to the

wife of the man who killed him so this is Mordemortemar wife of Roger Mortimer who dealt the lethal blow.

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