EFL - Enciclopedia delle Famiglie Lombarde

Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia J ump to: navigation, search Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola (1244 – c . 1288) was the son of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and El eanor of England. He participated in the Battle of Evesham against th e royalist forces of his uncle, King Henry III of England, and his cou sin, Prince Edward. Both his father and his elder brother were kille d during the disastrous battle, and Guy was seriously wounded and take n prisoner. He was held at Windsor Castle until spring 1266, when h e bribed his captors and escaped to France to rejoin his exiled family . Guy and his brother, Simon the younger, wandered across Europe for s everal years, eventually making their way to Italy. Guy took servic e with Charles of Anjou, serving as his Vicar-General in Tuscany. Ther e he married an Italian noblewoman, Margherita Aldobrandesca, the Lad y of Sovana, heiress of a branch of the Aldobrandeschi family, wit h a feudal contado, nominally subject to Orvieto, that stretched fro m the shores of the Tyrrhenian sea to the borders of Acquapendente. Wi th her he had two daughters:[1] Anastasia, married Romano Orsini[2] T omasina, married Pietro Vico He distinguished himself at the Battle o f Alba and was given Nola by Charles of Anjou. In 1271 Guy and Simo n discovered their cousin Henry of Almain (son of Richard, Earl of Cor nwall) was in Viterbo at the church of San Silvestro. In revenge for t he deaths of their father and brother at Evesham, Guy and Simon murder ed Henry while he clutched the altar, begging for mercy. "You had no m ercy for my father and brothers", was Guy's reply. For this crime th e Montfort brothers were excommunicated, and Dante banished Guy to th e river of boiling blood in the seventh circle of his Inferno (Canto X II). Simon died later that year at Siena, "cursed by God, a wandere r and a fugitive". Guy was stripped of his titles and took service wit h Charles of Anjou again, but was captured off the coast of Sicily i n 1287 by the Aragonese at the Battle of the Counts. He died in a Sici alian prison. Among his direct descendants (via his elder daughter, A nastasia): late 15th century Kings of Naples, England's Queen-Consor t Elizabeth Woodville, 16th century rulers of Poland, Dukes of Ferrera , and Dukes of Guise. [edit] Notes ^ Margherita, ward of Benedett o Cardinal Caetani, survived him and went on to be married four time s more. (G. Ciacchi, Gli Aldobrandeschi nella storia e nella 'Divina C ommedia' , (Rome) 1935, vol. i, ch. 6). ^ Napoleone Cardinal Orsini su cceeded Benedetto Caetani as her mother's guardian, married her to hi s brother Orsello and arranged this marriage, which brought Sovana an d the Aldobrandeschi inheritance to the Orsini. [edit] Sources Maddico tt, J.R. Simon de Montfort, 1996