The Magnificent Century (42 page)

Henry came back to England in a complacent frame of mind, announcing somewhat smugly that he would “receive into his peace” all who were ready to swear their acceptance of the award. To his huge dismay he found the country echoing with preparations for war.

T
HE
CASTLE
at Northampton was one of the strongest in the kingdom, and the walls of the town were high and thick. To Simon de Montfort, still nursing his broken leg in London but losing no time in organizing a force of townsmen, it seemed that this midland stronghold, commanded by his cousin, Peter de Montfort of Beaudesert, and his son Simon, was an unconquerable outpost. He had not yet seen any evidence of the skill Prince Edward was acquiring in the art of war, but this he was due to discover at once.

Edward had learned one lesson from Simon himself, that battles were won by speed of movement and use of the element of surprise. On April 3 the royal army moved out of Oxford, where it had been mobilized, and struck north. The grades of the Chilterns lay east and south, and so the road to Northampton was straight and level enough. Edward led his men over the thirty-five miles in little more than one day, startling the baronial garrison by arriving suddenly under the walls the following afternoon.

The youthful impetuosity of the prince, which was responsible for this miracle, almost resulted now in throwing away the fruits of his energy. Having no sense of fatigue himself, he ordered his dusty followers to attack the city at once. They were repulsed, as might have been expected.

That night, while Edward sat gloomily under the stars, his armor beside him on the ground, there came to him the prior of the Cluniac
monastery of St. Andrew which stood in a corner of the wall near the north gate. The prior was ardently royalist in sentiment and was prepared to give the same help to the prince that the woman who lived on the wall at Jericho rendered the besieging army of Israel. His monks were making an excavation under the walls through which the forces of Edward could file into the town. Dawn found the prince and his men pouring into the streets. Young Simon fought bravely to hold them back, but he was overborne and captured. The following day the castle surrendered.

William of Valence had returned to England after publication of the Mise of Amiens, on direct invitation from the jubilant Henry. He had marched under Edward’s banner and was now given the task of pillaging the country around Northampton, extending as far as the Montfort estates at Leicester. This was a task which suited perfectly the haughty and vengeful Lusignan. He went about the razing of manor houses, the burning of villages, and the slaughtering of innocent people with thoroughness and relish. In the meantime the prince was demonstrating how well he had learned his lesson by following up his victory without delay. Consuming no more than five days in the operation, he marched south with his weary but triumphant followers and captured the town of Winchelsea. Tonbridge Castle, which belonged to Gilbert of Gloucester, fell soon after.

One of the prisoners taken at Tonbridge was Gilbert’s wife, Alice of Angoulême, who was Edward’s half cousin and a special favorite with both the prince and the King. Gossip had it, in fact, that the dark-eyed and vivacious Alice was a very special favorite; that as the young wife of the prince was still in France and would be kept there until things settled down in England, Edward had been solacing himself with the company of this fair Poitevin relative. There was probably some truth in the story because Edward had not seen his child wife for some time. The countess was released with great courtesy and, perhaps, inner regret.

The strategy followed by the prince thereafter was sound, being based on the truth that whoever was master of Kent and Sussex was master of England. If the royalists could control the country south of London, they could keep communications open with France and so prepare the way for the arrival of the forces which Queen Eleanor and John Mansel were mobilizing in the ports of Normandy. The Cinque Ports being baronial in sympathy, the royalists were under
the necessity of occupying the country back of them with the intention of taking them over gradually.

There were two main roads leading from the Channel ports to London, the one most frequently used running from Dover to Canterbury and then by way of Rochester to the capital. The other ran from Hastings and Battle to Lewes and Croydon, which meant that some part of it went through the Weald. The first was the preferable one for the royal army to take in any movement directed against London, but Simon de Montfort was attacking Rochester with great vigor. Still unable to sit a horse with any comfort, he had been directing his men from a curious vehicle in which he had traveled from London and which resembled a chariot with four wheels. This had not handicapped him seriously because he had already captured the town and was pressing his attack against the castle when the royal forces began to march up the more westerly road from Hastings with the object, clearly, of attacking London. Simon, who lacked strength to guard both roads at once, had to give up the siege of Rochester and take his relatively small army to Fletching, which lay nine miles north of Lewes. Here, his men concealed for the most part in the eastern approaches to the Weald, he watched and waited.

When the royal army reached Lewes, King Henry took up his quarters in the Cluniac priory of St. Pancras, which lay on the southeast, between the town and the river Ouse, while Prince Edward was lodged in a castle belonging to William de Warenne on the west. Time was on their side, and they could afford to wait until the Burgundian and Brabanter mercenaries of Queen Eleanor arrived. They knew, however, that they had a decided superiority in numbers over the army of the barons and they were eager to engage them.

Perhaps because of this discrepancy in strength the barons made a final effort to reach a peaceful settlement. The bishops of London and Worcester carried a peace offer to Henry on May 13. The barons would grant the King fifty thousand marks if he would again affirm the Provisions and swear to observe them strictly. Such a proposal, coming from a meager army skulking in the shelter of the Weald, seemed to Henry and his advisers a confession of weakness and
despair and was rejected with scorn. Prince Edward is reported to have said, “Peace is forbidden to them, unless they all find themselves with halters on their necks, and bind themselves over to us for hanging or for drawing.” There was nothing for Simon to do now but fight.

That night the baronial leader moved his army from its well-concealed base at Fletching and marched through the darkness to a position beneath the ridge of the Downs immediately north of Lewes. There had been talk of attacking during the night, but this suggestion Simon had rejected as treacherous. The hours until dawn were spent instead in prayer and the hearing of confessions. After a sleepless night Earl Simon donned a plain surcoat over the chain mail which enveloped him from head to foot and buckled on his long two-edged sword. He said a silent prayer as he gazed up at Black Cap over which the sky had turned faintly gray. The day of the great test was at hand.

Each man wore the white cross of the Crusades on back and shoulder as a sign of the barons’ belief in the justice of their cause. There was a practical purpose in this as well, because they would be able to distinguish friend from foe in the heat of conflict.

Earl Simon, it should be explained at this point, was not as badly crippled as the royalists thought. He had recovered sufficiently to take to the saddle, and during the day he would demonstrate his fitness by remaining in the thick of the fighting. He had used the chariot in getting to Fletching, however, thereby convincing the enemy, who had spies everywhere, that he was incapable of active leadership. The chariot now contained the four merchants who had tried to betray Simon to the prince. The earl did not forgive treachery easily and had some drastic punishment in mind for the unhappy quartet.

North of Lewes the Downs rise to a height of about four hundred feet and then shelve off abruptly to the level of the Ouse. The escarpment above looked black and formidable when the army of the people began their ascent. Black Cap stood up against the ebony of the sky, and off to the east rose the somewhat lower hilltop called Mount Harry. There were two roads which could be used in getting to the crest: a steep incline leading up between the two peaks, and a longer but less severely graded route which wound slowly around Mount Harry on the east. The heavily armored troops and the knights on horseback took the latter way while the foot soldiers and archers in their light leather jerkins went scrambling up the sharp cut between Black Cap and the line of the hills.

THE BATTLE OF LEWES

Simon de Montfort rode in the van with the armed horsemen, a prey to the most intense anxiety. Would he find the passes above well guarded? If any part of the royal army had been posted behind the jagged crest of the Downs it would be impossible to gain a foothold and the upward thrust of the baronial forces would end in disaster. It was a bold gamble they were taking, but no other course had been open which held out any chance of victory. It has already been pointed out that time was on the side of the King. To win the test by battle the barons must win before the royalist strength was augmented by mercenary levies from abroad. If they could gain a foothold on the Downs, moreover, the royal forces would be placed at a severe disadvantage, compelled to fight uphill and with no facilities for retreat in case of defeat.

Simon de Montfort knew the risks he was taking and as he rode up the incline he strained his ears for any of the sounds which might betray the presence of the enemy: the neigh of a horse, a voice raised indiscreetly, the muffled tramp of feet. All was silence. Did this mean they would be allowed to seize the heights?

The knights in the van emerged cautiously from the road circling Mount Harry and found themselves on the downward grade to Lewes. Over their left shoulders they could see the sky turning to the light gray of dawn, shot with shafts of red. Under them were the lights of Lewes, where, it was said later, the royal troops in the priory had been drinking in expectation of an easy victory. The slopes immediately ahead of the debouching troops were clear, but a sound of galloping came back out of the darkness to warn them that scouts were carrying word to the town of their advance.

Simon de Montfort made his dispositions for battle. His army was small, numbering perhaps a little in excess of four thousand men. The center was given to the command of Gilbert of Gloucester with two veteran campaigners to assist him, William of Montchesni and John Fitzjohn. The right wing was entrusted to Simon’s two sons, Henry and Guy, assisted by John de Burgh and Humphrey de Bohun. The left wing was made up of a small body of knights under Nicholas de Segrave and the citizen bands from London, who were lightly armed and lacking in military experience. Little was expected
of the left. They were to advance down a ridge on the east with the Ouse immediately beneath them, and so constitute a threat to the royalist right without coming into close contact. A considerable reserve was assembled on the high ground near Black Cap, and here Earl Simon set up his standard, placing it above the four-wheeled chariot so that the impression might be maintained that he himself was stationed there like Moses directing the battle of Rephidim with uplifted arms from afar.

It had been overconfidence which had led the royal leaders to post a single sentry near Black Cap (he was sound asleep in the bushes) instead of occupying the roads up to the Downs. They were sure Simon de Montfort was still suffering from his injuries, a leader so downcast by the sweep of the King’s army and so conscious of his meager strength that he had gone on the defensive by taking shelter in the Weald. They expected him to play the part of a Willikin on a much larger scale, using the Weald as a base from which to harry the royal army. It had never entered their heads, clearly, that he would have the magnificent audacity to lead his men up the steep escarpment and offer battle in the open.