there would support the idea that his activities were largely motivated by self-interest. Prince Edward and the king having finally been captured gave Ferrers his opportunity, to gain the royal castles of Bolsover, Horston, and Tickhill, in Yorkshire. By the end of 1264, he had also taken Peverel and, it is believed, Chester Castles. Retribution Montfort's Parliament of 1265 broadened elected representation beyond the nobility to freeholder groups. Some of the Barons felt that he had gone too far and he began to lose support. Meanwhile, Edward continued under house arrest, and Montfort was working out an agreement for his release that included the surrender of large portions of his lands. That these were lands that Ferrers had appropriated made Montfort a new and dangerous adversary. Montfort summoned Ferrers to the session of Parliament for January 1265, ordered him to surrender Peverel Castle, and accused him of "divers trespasses", after which he had him arrested and sent to the Tower of London. J. R. Maddicott, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, suggests that: Rebellion once more Meanwhile, Montfort was steadily losing support and, in May, the Earl of Gloucester deserted to the side of the King. With his assistance, and that of Roger de Mortimer, Edward escaped from Kenilworth Castle. When he defeated Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in August 1265, the rebels were shown little mercy. In spite of Ferrers's activities against Prince Edward's estates, his support in the North Midlands was potentially useful to King Henry, as was his money. Ferrers was released and, on paying 1500 marks, was given a pardon, his inheritance was secured, and mediation arranged in his quarrel with Prince Edward. Far from accepting his good fortune, in 1266 he joined a number of previous Montfortian supporters, including Baldwin de Wake, lord of Chesterfield, in a fresh rebellion. Initially, it would seem that the rebels gathered at Ferrers's substantial Duffield Castle. However, from Tutbury, the royalist army, under Prince Henry, a nephew of Henry III, bypassed Duffield and proceeded to Chesterfield to intercept a force from the North under John d'Ayville. Robert was, therefore, compelled to move northwards, crossing the River Amber, which was then flooded, reaching Chesterfield on 15 May 1266, just as d'Ayville arrived from Dronfield. In what has come to be known as the Battle of Chesterfield, they engaged the Royal forces in battle and were defeated. One