The good cause for which Simon had fought might well have seemed lost, when Edward’s knights were hacking the dead body of the great earl to pieces at Evesham. But it was not exactly a “Royalist victory,” for the very men who stood victors over the mangled corpse of Earl Simon were men as resolute as he was to enforce the Great Charter and its results against the king.[58] In the hour of triumph Henry struck hard, and a mad reaction of terror ensued. But the movement Simon had led could not be turned back, and the very savage extravagance of the royalist party defeated its own ends. A general sentence of disinheritance against all who had fought with Simon drove the disinherited barons to keep up the fight. The siege of Kenilworth, where Sir Henry of Hastings defied the whole royal army, lasted from June to December, 1266, and was only ended by Parliament insisting on the king appointing a board of twelve, who made a just award concerning the disinherited. By this award, called the Ban of Kenilworth:-- The royal obligation to keep the charters was required. The acts of Simon were annulled, and the full prerogatives of the crown declared. The freedom of the Church was demanded. Justice was to be done according to the laws and customs of the realm. The adherents of Simon were to be punished by fine and not by disinheritance, so that the king could repay those who had served him faithfully without giving occasion for fresh war. Simon was not to be proclaimed a saint (seeing he died under the excommunication of the Church), and those who spread idle tales of miracles done at his tomb were to be punished. A complete indemnity was promised to all who accepted the ban within forty days. For a time the ban was rejected, and it was not till the summer of 1267 that the struggle was finally over. Peace was assured by the Parliament of Marlborough in November, 1267, which re-enacted the Provisions of Westminster (1259) as a statute. The lasting value of Simon’s work was seen in 1295, when Edward I. summoned his great representative parliament on the professed principle that “that which touches all shall be approved by all.” This assembly, by that very principle, served as “a pattern for all future assemblies of the nation.” (Stubbs.) Had Simon of Montfort received canonization by the Church he would surely have been the patron saint of all workers in the world of politics, and of all who honestly and courageously engage in public work. Wat Tyler and the Peasant Revolt 1381