Countess Amicia De Beaumont LEICESTER

   Other names for Amicia were LEICESTER Countess and HARCOURT.

   Ancestral File Number: 8Q7Z-KF.

   General Notes:

Countess of LEICESTER.

BOOKS
A History of the Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co
p186: "The Montforts were one of the families which were squeezed when the French took Normandy away from England in John's reign. They had fought at Hastings, and one of them called Simon III in family annals, had become Earl of Leicester through marriage with Amicia de Beaumont..."
"Young Simon soon discovered, however, that there was a worm at the core of his apple of content. The Leicester estates, spreading over a dozen counties, had been divided several generations back between Amicia and a young sister..."

Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, AMS Press, 1905, p55: "...[By 1236] England was now the hunting-ground of any well-born Frenchmen anxious for a wider career than they could obtain at home. Among the foreigners attracted to England to prosecute legal claims or to seek the royal bounty came Simon of Montfort, the second son of the famous conqueror of the Albigenses. Amice, the mother of the elder Simon, was the sister and heiress of Robert of Beaumont, the last of his line to hold the earldom of Leicester. After Amice's death her son used the title and claimed theestates of that earldom. But these pretensions were but nominal, and since 1215 Randolph of Chester had administered the Leicester lands as if his complete property. However, Amaury of Montfort, the Count of Toulouse's eldest son, ceded to his portionless younger brother his claims to the Beaumont inheritance, and in 1230 Simon went to England to push his fortunes..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981, Micropaedia, Vol VI, p1022, Montfort Simon De (Earl of Leicester): "The son of the elder Simon de Montfort, Simon moved to England in 1229 and acquired the earldom of Leicester, which had formerly belonged to the family of his father's mother..."

Macropaedia, Vol XII, p408: "...Simon was wholly French by birth and education. On coming of age, he rennounced to his eldest brother Amaury his claims on the family lands in return for the sole right to revive the Montfort claim to the English earldom of Leicester. This claim derived from his father's mother, Amicia, sister of Robert IV (died 1204), the last Beaumont earl of Leicester, whose lands had been divided between Amicia and her younger sister Margaret, countess of Winchester. King John had recognized Simon's father as earl (c 1205) but had deprived himas a French subject (1207), and the Montfort claim had then laptsed.
"Simon came to England in 1229 and, helped by his cousin Ranulf, earl of Chester, the tenant of the confiscated estates, obtained the honour of Leicester and did homageto Henry III in 1231, though he was not formally styled earl of Leicester until April 1239..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
8Q7Z-KF Amice Born Abt 1152 Leicester Mar Abt 1172 Simon DEMONTFORT (AFN:8Q7Z-J8).

   Marriage Information:

Amicia married Earl Simon De Montfort LEICESTER, III, son of Simon Le Chauve De MONTFORT, II and Countess Maud EVREUX, about 1169-1172 in , Leicestershire, England. (Earl Simon De Montfort LEICESTER, III was born about 1153 in Montfort Amaury, Ile DE France, France, died before Jan 1188 and was buried in Haute-Bruyere, , France.)

   Marriage Information:

Amicia also married William Henry De BARRES before Feb 1188 in , Ile De France, France.