Under
Simon's leadership the Cinque Ports played the part of pirates on all
merchants going to and from England. At last in March, 1266, Edward
forced Winchelsea to open its gates to him. He next turned his arms
against a valiant freebooter, Adam Gordon, who lurked with his band of
outlaws in the dense beech woods of the Chilterns. With the capture of
Adam Gordon, after a hand-to-hand tussle with Edward in which the
king's son narrowly escaped with his life, the resistance in the south
was at an end.
As one centre of rebellion was pacified other disturbances arose. In
the spring of 1266, Robert Ferrars, Earl of Derby, newly released from
the prison into which Earl Simon had thrown him, raised a revolt in his
own county. On May 15, 1266, Derby was defeated by Henry of Almaine at
Chesterfield. His earldom was transferred to Edmund, the king's son,
already Montfort's successor as Earl of Leicester, and in 1267 also
Earl of Lancaster, a new earldom, deriving its name from the youngest
of the shires.[1] Reduced to the Staffordshire estate of
Chartley, the house of Ferrars fell back into the minor baronage.
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