Simon de Montfort – aristocratic champion of the people, French born crusader for English rights – blazed across the troubled thirteenth century like an afterglow of Camelot.Amid the wars and intrigues, courtiers and crusades, of Henry III’s peevish England and Llewelyn’s divided Wales, Simon alone lacked the art of dissembling. And even for the greatest warrior in Europe, the privileged husband of the King’s favourite sister, that was a dangerous failing..