General Notes

On Leicester, Earldom of [Burke's Peerage, p. 1671]:

The 4th [Beaumont] Earl, who was also the fourth named Robert, accompanied Richard I on the Third Crusade but accomplished a smooth transfer of loyalty to John on the latter's succession in 1199.  On his death without issue in 1204 the elder of his two sisters and coheirs, Amice, began calling herself Countess of Leicester.  Her first husband was Simon de Montfort (roughly halfway between Paris and Chartres) and Rochefort, and her son by him, another Simon de Montfort, was being regarded as Earl of Leicester by the years 1205 or 1206, shortly after the death of his maternal uncle [Robert de Beaumont], the 4th Earl of whatever creation had occurred in or about 1102.  The new de Montfort Earl led the victorious crusade against the Albigensian heretics in Southern France and carved out for himself a substantial territory in the Toulouse-Carcassonne area, hanging, burning and in once case entombing down a well his opponents as he went and arrogating to himself the titles of the more important heretics, such as Duke of Narbonne, Marquis of Provence, Count of Toulouse and Vicomte of Albi.  He was killed in 1218 while besieging Toulouse, hit by a well-aimed stone launched from a mangonel within the city.

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The first of this family that settled in England was Simon de Montfort, surnamed the Bald, great grandson of Almaric, an illegitimate son of Robert,* King of France. Which Simon having m. Amicia, one of the two sisters and co-heirs of Robert de Bellemont, or Beaumont, surnamed Fitz-Parnel, 4th and last Earl of Leicester of that family, obtained a grant of the Earldom of Leicester from King John, with a confirmation of the Stewardship of England, which he acquired by the possession of the honour of Hinkley, a portion of the immense fortune of his wife. But notwithstanding these marks of royal favour, the earl, within a brief period, revolted from the King of England to the King of France, for which act of treason the Earldom of Leicester was transferred to Ranulph, Earl of Chester, the honours of Hinkley seized upon by the crown, and de Montfort himself banished the realm. Soon after this (1209), we find him under the title of Earl of Montfort, general of the crusade against the Albigenses, and in nine years subsequently a leader in the besieging arms of Lewis, King of France, before the walls of Toulouse where he was slain by a slinger from the battlements. His lordship had two sons by the co-heiress of Beaumont, namely, Almaric and Simon.

*Thus, Robert, King of France.
Almaric, who had the town of Montfort by gift of his royal father and thence assumed that surname.
Simon de Montfort.
Almaric, Earl of Monfort, father of Simon, [the subject of this sketch].

[Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, England, 1883, p. 376, Montfort, Earls of Leicester]

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note: it was Simon's father (also Simon) who married Amicia de Bellemont as his 2nd wife and mother of this Simon.
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Simon de Montfort, b. 1165?--d. June 25, 1218, Toulouse, Fr., French leader of the Albigensian Crusade declared by Pope Innocent III against the Cathari, an unorthodox religious group in southern France.

In 1190 Montfort married Alice de Montmorency (died 1221). During the Fourth Crusade (1202-04) he participated in the siege of Zara and later fought in Syria. Beginning in 1209 he led the fight against the Cathari (better known as Albigenses after the town of Albi) in a crusade that quickly became a war of conquest by the northern French against the nobility of the south. Having conquered BÈziers and Carcassonne, he was chosen to govern those lands. When most of the crusaders departed after the 40-day term they had promised to serve, he was left with large territories still to conquer. After he had won the important Battle of Muret in 1213, the lands of Raymond VI, count of Toulouse, were adjudged to Montfort by the fourth Lateran Council (1215) because of Raymond's failure to root out heretics. He now styled himself count of Toulouse, viscount of BÈziers and Carcassonne, and duke of Narbonne, but Raymond did not accept defeat. He occupied Toulouse in September 1217. Montfort was killed while besieging the city. His son Amaury (died 1241) soon abandoned the crusade and ceded the Montfort lands in southern France to King Louis VIII. [EncyclopÊdia Britannica CD '97]