In 1264 England was plunged into civil war by an ambitious noble named Simon de Montfort. Defeated by his lord and benefactor Henry III, he gambled everything on one pitched battle and won a spectacular victory. With the king now his prisoner, de Montfort set up the first constitutional monarchy in Europe. Predating modern democracies by more than five hundred years, his radical regime inspired historians of the nineteenth century when they set out to trace the political evolution of England.

First appearing in 1844, The Barons' War still remains one of the most informative works on this pivotal moment in history. The original 1871 edition has been restored by Handshake Press as volume two of its new series of medieval books.