Henry of Almain

Who was Henry of Almain?

Henry of Almain, so called because of his father's German connections as King of the Romans, was the son of Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall and Isabel Marshal.

He was knighted by his father the day after Richard was crowned King of the Romans.

As a nephew of both Henry III and Simon de Montfort, he wavered between the two at the beginning of the Barons' War, but finally took the royalist side and was among the hostages taken by Montfort after the Battle of Lewes, was held at Wallingford Castle and later released.

In 1268 he took the cross with his cousin Edward, who, however, sent him back from Sicily to pacify the unruly province of Gascony. Henry took the land route with Philip III of France and Charles I of Sicily.

While attending mass at Chiesa di San Silvestro in Viterbo on 13 March 1271, he was murdered by his cousins Guy and Simon the younger de Montfort, sons of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, in revenge for the beheading of their father and older brother at the Battle of Evesham.