THE BATTLE OF LEWES
After the defeats at Northampton and Rochester, Simon was badly in need of a victory. He wasn’t quite desperate enough to stake all on a pitched battle. In London he discussed terms for a peaceful settlement with those bishops loyal to his cause and other supporters. They agreed to offer financial compensation to the king, for his losses suffered in the March, in exchange for his ratification of the Provisions of Oxford. Simon and his allies may have been compelled by self-preservation, as much as a desire to end the war. In spite of his reputation as a poor soldier, King Henry had so far conducted a near-faultless campaign, and his forces greatly outnumbered the rebels. Simon hoped Robert Ferrers would arrive in London with reinforcements, but Ferrers failed to heed the earl’s call and stayed in the Midlands.
Simon dared not wait much longer. On 6th May he left London and marched to face the king at Lewes. The size of the baronial army was swollen by crowds of London militia, enthusiastic but undisciplined and ill-armed. News of Simon’s advance soon reached King Henry, who hurriedly moved westwards from Battle to the greater safety of the castle and walled town at Lewes, which was held by one of his supporters, Earl Warenne. Simon marched to his manor of Fletching, nine miles north of Lewes. Even now, conflict might have been avoided. On 12th May the two sides opened negotiations, communicating via the Bishop of Chichester and a group of Dominican and Franciscan friars.
The negotiations failed, largely due to the influence of Edward and his uncle, Richard of Cornwall, neither of whom trusted the Montfortians or the terms they offered. Both sides then exchanged fierce messages of defiance. The final defiance sent by Edward and Richard is repeated below:
“Richard, by the grace of God, king of the Romans, always Augustus, and Edward, the illustrious eldest son of the king of England, and all the other barons and nobles who constantly with the labors of sincere good faith and devotedness have adhered to the aforesaid king of England, to Simon Montfort, Gilbert Clare, and each and all the others who are accomplices in their treason. By your letters which you have sent to the illustrious king of England, our dearest lord, we understand that we are defied by you, although a verbal defiance of this kind was long ago sufficiently proved to us by actual reality, through your hostile pursuit of us, your burning of our properties, and general devastation of our possessions; we, therefore, wish you to know that you are all defied by each and all of us, as public enemies, and that we are your enemies; and that we will labor with all our might to the damage of your persons and property, whenever any opportunity of injuring either is offered to us…”
Edward is also said to have lost his temper and cried, “They shall have no peace whatever, unless they put halters round their necks, and surrender themselves for us to hang them up or drag them down, as we please.”
The talking was over, and now both sides prepared for battle. Simon quickly took the initiative. On the night of 13th May, he moved his army under cover of darkness to a commanding position on a crest of the Sussex Downs, overlooking the royalists encamped in the town below. By seizing the high ground he gained a crucial advantage, which would be fully exploited in the battle to come. A severely pious man, at sunrise on the 14th he gave a speech laden with religious symbolism. They were about to fight, he said, for the Kingdom of England, the honour of God, of blessed Mary, of all saints and of the Holy Church. As the earl spoke, his troops lay flat on the ground, arms extended, praying for victory. When he had finished they rose, crossed themselves, and were absolved of their sins by the bishops of Chichester and Worcester.
Some sources claim Simon placed a chariot or carriage next to his battle standard in the centre of the rebel lines, on top of the Downs. Earlier in the year he had used it for transport while recovering from his broken leg. Afterwards it was used to convey hostages. Pierre Langtoft, a near-contemporary annalist, claims the carriage was used as bait to lure royalist troops out of position, thinking Simon was inside it:
‘The earl craftily causes a chariot to be made in London,
As though it were for his use on account of his illness.’
Some elderly hostages from London were in the carriage. During the battle they were massacred during the battle by Edward’s men, who were under the impression that Simon was hiding inside:
‘Now, when the said army was about to leave the city, Simon took with him, in their carriage, these lofty orators, in order that they might not cause the city to surrender to the royal interest while the army of the Londoners was employed in the expedition against the king. The chariot had a little narrow door, through which these aged persons could go out and in, but still under watchful custody, when the necessities of nature so required it…round about that chariot Simon had caused those standards which are called penons, that by this means the king and his army might be deluded into the belief that Simon was in the chariot.’
The size of the opposing hosts is difficult to determine. Contemporary annalists give wildly differing estimates, though on balance it seems likely the king’s army numbered some 5,500 men. Of these, perhaps 1,200 were mounted. Most sources agree that Simon’s army was outnumbered, though he may have had a roughly equal number of infantry to the king.The disposition of both armies is better-documented. King Henry’s army was divided into three battalions or battles, with Edward in command of the first, Richard of Cornwall the centre, and the king the third (on the left flank). The baronial army was divided into four battles. Henry Montfort and the Earl of Hereford’s son had the first, the Earl of Gloucester the second, Nicholas Segrave the third, Earl Simon himself the fourth.
Edward was quartered in the castle at Lewes, and may have led his men first onto the field. He had command of the best troops in the royalist army, Marchers and Lusignans, heavily armed and mailed cavalry. Again, numbers are uncertain, but the size of his retinue is variously given as between 300 to 700 men.
King Henry clearly put his trust in Edward’s fighting qualities. Edward was undoubtedly the most dynamic commander on the royalist side, and as heir to the throne was entitled to a position of honour on the battlefield. At Lewes his natural aggression, usually an asset, would lose the battle for the king. Edward’s earlier outburst in the peace talks suggests his mood was unstable. A number of sources claim he was driven by vindictive fury against the Londoners, who had insulted his mother on the Thames in the previous summer. Edward was said to be ‘thirsting like a stag for a spring of water for the blood of his enemies, the Londoners.’
As it happened, the London militia under Nicholas de Segrave were drawn up directly opposite Edward’s battle. At the sight of their banners, all his pent-up rage and hatred boiled over. He gave the signal to charge and led his cavalry straight at the Londoners. The majority of these men were civilians – ‘rustics, scurvy and soapy clowns’, according to the typically waspish Paris – totally inexperienced at war, and stood little chance against heavily armed and mounted knights. Earl Simon may have realised their weakness, and screened them with a body of mounted troops under Henry Hastings. Edward’s furious charge ploughed straight through these men, scattering them, and drove into the Londoners. After brief resistance, the militia broke and fled: ‘putting fear before courage, convinced…that safety in flight was preferable to awaiting the chance outcome of battle.’ They were pursued uphill and across the Downs with great slaughter. Sixty of the wretches drowned as they tried to swim the nearby River Ouse.
Edward had smashed the left wing of the baronial army, and might have won the battle if he kept control of his men. Instead he lost his cool and chased the fleeing Londoners over four miles. While Edward hared off the field, taking with him the best of his father’s knights, the rest of the royal army took a hammering. Richard of Cornwall’s battle in the centre was broken, and Cornwall himself forced to take refuge in a nearby mill. His defeat left the king’s battle isolated and outflanked. Henry himself fought bravely, his armour beaten and dented by rebel blades, and had two horses killed under him. His justiciar, Philip Basset, suffered twenty wounds before he surrendered.
The Flores (Flowers of History, another chronicle) claims that the royalist army suffered from haste and indiscipline, and that too many of Henry’s men fought badly on the day:
‘Therefore the king and other nobles, being informed of their sudden advance, wakened up all through the camp, and speedily assembled in arms, and marshalled their army for battle, arraying a vast multitude of men armed with breastplates, but the greater number of them being false and factious, and destitute of all proper principle, marched forward on that day without any order, and with precipitation, and fought unskilfully, and showed no steady perseverance.’
The king’s battle was forced to quit the field and retreat south past Lewes Priory. Henry’s bodyguards managed to get the king to the priory, where they shut the gates and mounted a strong guard. His brother Cornwall was not so fortunate. Trapped inside the mill, he was surrounded by rebel soldiers, who mocked him and accused him of being a sorry miller. He was eventually allowed to surrender to a knight, Sir John Beavs, who handed him over to Earl Simon. Richard’s plight at the mill inspired a popular song:
‘The King of Almain thought to do full well,
They seized the mill for a castle,
With their sharp swords they ground the steel,
They thought the sails had been mangonels…
The King of Almain gathered his host,
He made him a castle of a mill-post…
Chorus:
Richard, though thou be a trichard [trickster],
Trichen shalt thou never more.’
When Edward finally returned from his slaughter of the Londoners, all was over. He had expected to find the rebels defeated. Instead the royal army was destroyed and Earl Simon, against all odds, had pulled off a near-miraculous victory. Yet Edward refused to admit defeat. His cavalry were still intact, and he proposed they should charge the baronial army. Most of his knights promptly deserted him. While Edward cut his way through to the priory the others rode away to Pevensey and France to continue the resistance. The fugitives included Earl Warenne and King Henry’s own half-brothers William Valence and Guy Lusignan. From Lewes they got away to Pevensey Castle, and from hence overseas to France. Others, such as Roger Mortimer, decided to make their peace and march home with their troops on condition that they stood trial before their peers in parliament.
With his few remaining followers, Edward could do little but make his way to the priory and rejoin his father. Despite the terrible defeat, there was hope yet for the royalists. The garrison in Lewes Castle still held out, as did the king’s men in the priory. While some of Simon’s men pillaged Lewes, others attacked these strongholds and tried to force the gates. Royalist archers shot flaming arrows at the rebels, though they only succeeded in setting fire to the town and certain buildings of the priory. Encouraged by the resistance of the garrison, Edward once again tried to rally the troops and lead them in a desperate charge. Saner counsel prevailed; after all, his uncle was Earl Simon’s prisoner, as well as many other royalist knights and barons. There was no option but to surrender and ask for terms: Simon rammed the point home by threatening to kill Richard of Cornwall, Philip Basset, and other prisoners, and skewer their heads on lances, unless the king agreed to talk. The subsequent peace treaty, negotiated the night after the battle, was called the Mise of Lewes.
Casualties were heavy at Lewes, especially among the common infantry. The foot soldiers were said to be ‘slaughtered in great numbers’, and the mass graves discovered in the 19th century supported this claim. In 1810, three burial-pits were uncovered by workmen, near the east entrance to the modern prison. The pits contained the crushed and mangled remains of 500 men each. In 1846 another pit, containing the bones of a similar number of men, was discovered by railway excavators in the grounds of the Priory. Such a concentration of bodies suggests a single process of burial, suitable to an event such as a battle. Plague pits would have been left open for the amount of time needed to fill the graves with so many bodies. Smaller graves, containing six to nine bodies each, have been found in chalk pits near the crest of Offham hill. These may have been plague pits, containing bodies disposed at a safe distance from the town. Alternatively, they might be the remains of the hapless London militia, slaughtered by Edward’s knights in the initial stages of the battle. A rough total of 2,000 dead can be made to fit with some chronicle estimates of the slain at Lewes, though admittedly these vary from 600 to 15,000.
Even pro-royalist chroniclers were not slow to blame Edward for the king’s defeat at Lewes. Many agree his long absence from the field proved fatal, and that upon their return his men and horses were too exhausted to turn the tide of battle: ‘But through his absence the strength of the royalists was considerably diminished’; ‘the chariot caused him in truth to lose the mastery’; ‘some of them, as it is said, were neither able to strike a blow with the sword nor to recognise the usual strength in their blows’.
At Lewes Edward allowed his passions to run away with him, though in fairness none of his captains showed much composure either. His willingness to renew the fight, even after the king’s army was beaten, showed typical courage and obstinacy, but the gesture was futile. Earl Simon had won the day, and in the short term all Edward and his father could do was submit to honourable captivity.
Though officially a hostage, Edward was now Simon’s prisoner. For the next year he was shunted about various castles, Dover at first, then Wallingford, and eventually Kenilworth. His cousin, Henry of Almain, Richard of Cornwall’s son, also gave himself up as a hostage and was imprisoned at Berkhamsted. There are hints that Edward was treated badly during his captivity. One chronicler asserts he was treated ‘less honourably than was becoming’, while another even claims he was kept in a cage. These accusations seem unlikely, since Edward’s gaoler was his own cousin Henry Montfort.
Nevertheless, Edward’s gaolers were determined to keep him in tight custody. In October 1264 a group of his supporters made a bold effort to rescue him from Wallingford. They rode through the night to the castle and launched a surprise attack, breaking through the outer ward. In response the constable led Edward up to the battlements and threatened to hurl his prisoner from a mangonel unless the rescue party made themselves scarce. Edward took the threat seriously and ordered his friends to depart, ‘else he was dead.’ They reluctantly withdrew.
Yet Simon’s triumph was far from complete. For the sake of peace, the Mise of Lewes had obliged him to make certain concessions. The most important of these – and most dangerous, from his point of view – was the release of the Marcher barons loyal to King Henry. These men returned to their estates in the west, where they immediately set about plotting to overthrow the Montfortian regime. Edward’s knights still held Bristol, and the barons who had fled from Pevensey were busily raising a new army of mercenaries in France. They acted in concert with the Queen, Eleanor of Provence, who had gone into exile after her husband’s defeat. Meanwhile Simon struggled to keep peace in the land. One of his first acts after Lewes was to forbid the carrying of arms, but ‘plunderings and burnings’ were still rife. Throughout England, neighbours continued to prey on each other, and the strong oppressed the weak.
For a time Simon was able to maintain his position. The threat of the Marchers was dealt with in the summer of 1264, when the earl and his ally Llywelyn took the castles of Hay, Hereford and Ludlow and ravaged the lands of Roger Mortimer. The beaten Marchers were forced to make peace at Montgomery, though they wouldn’t be quiet for long. Simon then raced back to England to face the threatened invasion of Queen Eleanor and her mercenaries. The invasion fleet never sailed: Eleanor’s army dissolved through lack of funds, and Simon was able to whip up mass support among the native English, who flocked in their thousands to defend the coasts.
Helpless in prison, Edward could do nothing to influence events. His old foe, Robert Ferrers, now took revenge for the devastation Edward had wreaked on his estates in the spring. Shortly after Easter 1264 he and other barons attacked Edwardian castles in the Midlands, seized Tickhill and Bolsover and destroyed Alvestone and Harestan. Ferrers also found time to help Baldwin Wake in the attack on Fotherinhay Castle, and in late June or early June captured Edward’s chief castle of the Peak in Derbyshire. At about the same time he took Nottingham Castle and installed his own men in the garrison, including one Roger Godberd, who would later earn notoriety in his own right. Later, in November, Ferrers led a large army to Chester and routed a royalist force led by Dafydd ap Gruffudd and two Marcher barons:
‘Robert de Ferrers of Derby took twenty thousand foot, and an equal number of horse, and marched on Chester. And there he encountered William le Zouche, David the brother of Llewelyn, James de Audley, and a multitude of others, but they did not dare to come against the earl in battle, and so fled. And when it came to the pursuit, he killed up to a hundred of them, and captured others; and only one of his men was wounded.’
The earl’s period of success was short-lived. Ferrers had been conspicuous by his absence from Lewes, and Montfort clearly distrusted him. Montfort also wanted much of Edward’s former territory, including Chester and the Peak, for himself. Ferrers had recently conquered these lands, so Montfort devised a scheme to draw the wayward earl into a trap. In December he was summoned to Parliament in London to answer charges of ‘divers [many] trespasses’ and ordered to surrender the castle of the Peak. Ferrers might have defied the summons. Instead he walked into the trap and presented himself before parliament in London. He was seized and imprisoned in the Tower.
Simon’s regime was starting to crumble. In December the sullen Marchers refused to attend parliament and had to be whipped to heel by another military expedition. The three Rogers (Mortimer, Clifford and Leyburn) agreed to go into exile in Ireland for a year. First they were sent to see Edward at Wallingford, in the hope that he would order them to accept the terms. Edward requested they give up Bristol, and on 11th March 1265 agreed to surrender Chester, the Peak and Newcastle-under-Lyme to Simon. The other claimant to these lands, Robert Ferrers, was already imprisoned in the Tower. Thus Simon enriched and empowered himself at the expense of the two rivals.
Edward had conceded much in the hope of being released from prison. In return for a guarantee of good conduct, and a complex arrangement over the custody of five royal castles, he was finally set free. His ‘freedom’ was illusory: Edward was kept under close surveillance, surrounded by Montfortian knights, with Henry Montfort as his watchdog.
Simon’s rapacity proved his undoing. In the spring of 1265 the powerful Gilbert Clare, Earl of Gloucester, deserted the baronial cause and fled west with John Giffard to join the Marchers, who had still not gone to Ireland. Gloucester’s defection was a catastrophe for Simon, partially motivated by the ruthless treatment of Robert Ferrers. The arrest and imprisonment of a fellow earl made Gloucester understandably nervous, and he had already been in dispute with Simon over many issues: the ransom of a prisoner after Lewes, control of royal castles, the maintenance of the Provisions of Oxford and Mise of Lewes. Simon’s alliance with Llywelyn also threatened Gloucester’s massive power base in the March, under constant threat of attack by the Welsh prince.
For a time Clare and Giffard made their home in the forests near Gloucester, like a couple of Robin Hoods. The pugnacious Giffard lit a fire every night, to let the enemy know of his location and dare them to attack him. He may have also intended to make the captive Edward aware of the location of his friends:
‘The Earl of Gloucester was in the forest beside,
And Sir John Giffard also upon a high hill lay:
Which is called Erdland, both night and day:
A great fire he made there, at nights, of wood and spray,
And drew a track thereabout which was wide seen,
And into Gloucester also, so that his foes might see,
Where they should find him on that hill high.’
More bad news reached Simon in May when he learned that the exiles, Earl Warenne and William Valence, had landed in Pembroke to throw their weight behind the Marchers. To counter these threats, Simon marched to Hereford, taking the king and Edward with him, where he set about refortifying the castle. From Hereford he was well-placed to intercept the invaders if they attempted to link up with the Marchers.
Shortly after 28th May Simon received the worst news yet: Edward had escaped.