Simon was the younger of the two sons of the Count de Montfort, a name celebrated in the annals of religious warfare.  By the resignation of Amauri, his brother, the constable of France, he had succeeded to the estates of his mother Amicia, the elder of the two sisters and coheiresses of the late Earl of Leicester:  his subsequent marriage with Eleanor, the King’s sister, had brought within his view the prospect of a crown; and his marked opposition to the extortions of the King and the pontiffs had secured to him, though a foreigner, the affection of the nobility, the clergy, and the people.  Policy required that the King should not provoke, nor should oppress, so formidable a subject.  But Henry did neither:  he on some occasions employed the Earl in offices of trust and importance; on others, by a succession of petty affronts, irritated instead of subduing his spirit.  Among the inhabitants of Guienne there were many whose wavering fidelity proved a subject of constant solicitude; and Simon had been appointed, by patent, governor of the province for five years, with the hope that his activity and resolution would crush the disaffected and secure the allegiance of the natives.  They were to the earl years of continual exertion:  his conduct necessarily begot enemies; and he was repeatedly accused to the King of peculation, tyranny, and cruelty.  How far the charges were true it is impossible to determine; but his accusers were the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the chief of the Gascon nobility, who declared that, unless justice were done to their complaints, their countrymen would seek the protection of a different sovereign.  When Simon appeared before his peers, he was accompanied by Richard, the King’s brother, and the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, who had engaged to screen him from the royal resentment; and the King, perceiving that he could not procure the condemnation of the accused, vented his passion in intemperate language.  In the course of the altercation the word “traitor” inadvertently fell from his lips.  “Traitor!” exclaimed the earl; “if you were not a king, you should repent of that insult.”

“I shall never repent of anything so much,” replied Henry, “as that I allowed you to grow and fatten within my dominions.”  By the interposition of their common friends they were parted.  Henry conferred the duchy and government of Guienne on his son Edward, but the earl returned to the province, nor would he yield up his patent without a considerable sum as a compensation for the remaining years of the grant.  Fearing the King’s enmity, he retired into France, and was afterward reconciled to him through the mediation of the Bishop of Lincoln.