“Welcome
to the Abbey of St Mary and St Egwin. I am a brother of this house -
brother Joseph of Salford.
Let me tell you
about that day – it was August the fourth in the
year of Our Lord one thousand two hundred and sixty-five - when Simon de
Montfort, earl of Leicester, went out from here to do battle on the green
hill beyond our town's fields. But first, how did it happen that armies
came to fight in our peaceful Vale?
Well, there were
quarrels about the king's government. The king himself had been made a
hostage, while earl Simon ruled the country in the king's name. But
Prince Edward had escaped and had brought together an alliance to
challenge Simon.
The important
things began to happen on the first day of August. When that day dawned
Simon was at Hereford, watching the Welsh Marches, while Edward held the
line of the Severn against him. But young Simon de Montfort, who
commanded the second Montfortian army, had recently brought it to his
father's castle of Kenilworth. Edward saw a chance to attack young
Simon's army and he rode out of Worcester to make a surprise raid at
night. The Kenilworth force was greatly weakened by this move.
But Edward's
absence from Worcester gave earl Simon the chance to cross the Severn at
Kempsey, by Worcester. From Kempsey he pressed on to Evesham, and he
arrived in our Abbey during the night of 3rd August.
We brothers admired
the good earl, as we called him, and we welcomed him heartily. We had no
abbot at the time, and so Father Prior greeted him as he rode in at the
Great Gate.
The lord bishop of
Worcester was with him - his close friend and spiritual adviser. We monks
found it very strange to greet a bishop of Worcester, for we had always
kept them at arm's length because they fought against our independence as
an Abbey. But, at this turning-point in our kingdom's history, we
welcomed bishop de Cantelupe. It was even stranger to welcome a king to
our house, aIthough he was in honourable captivity.
During the night
the earl and the king took Communion together at the bishop's hands in one
of our chapels. We prayed for them. The earl's knights told us that he
hoped to join forces with the army led by his son.
Early in the
morning, when we had said the Office of Prime - our early prayers - we
found the soldiers getting ready. Just as we were going to our next
Service (you would call it about half past eight) the earl's scouts came
to warn him that the army led by the lord Edward and the earl of
Gloucester was close by.
At this time the
bishop gave earl Simon his blessing: 'in nomine
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen', and
took leave of him with tears, passing over the bridge on his way to his
manor of Blockley.
Then came a
harbinger of the painful event that was to happen. The sun withdrew its
light and a sudden wind swept over the vault of heaven. Large drops of
rain fell and there was a heavy thunderstorm. We prayed that it was not
a bad omen. However, it soon passed and the sky cleared.
As the sun came
through again, one of earl Simon's knights spoke out:
‘My lord, we have been hard pressed for some time now, and we have not
slept nor eaten for three days. We and our horses are almost done for
and exhausted. So let us go into the church and the tower, which is very
strong and can be defended, until our allies can come to our aid, and your
army has recovered its strength’.
Earl Simon
responded sharply: ‘No, fair friend, no. Knights belong on the field of
battle: in a church like this you find – chaplains’.
So the army set
off. But as he rode out at our Gate, Sir Guy de Balliol, who commanded
the leading knights, carried his standard too high and it shattered to
pieces against the gateway arch. Then the earl cried: ‘God help us now!’
Simon gathered his
men together by the town conduit and spoke to them: ‘Fair lords, there are
many among you who are still young: you have wives and children. So you
should look to see how you can save yourselves and them. You have only
to cross the bridge to escape from the great peril that is to come’.
Then he turned to
Sir Hugh Despenser: ‘My lord Hugh’.
‘My lord?’
‘My lord, consider your great age and look to saving yourself. Consider
the fact that your counsel can still be of great value to the whole
country, for you will leave behind you hardly anyone of such great value
and worth’.
‘My lord, my lord, let it be. Today we shall all drink from one cup, as
we have in the past’.
And so they rode
out of the town, forming up into battle order as rode up the hill. Then
the Welsh foot-soldiers turned and raised a cry up to the skies, so that
the whole ground seemed to echo. And the
brothers returned to the monastery, to wait and to pray.
Meanwhile, the lord
Edward and sir Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, had marched from
Worcester towards Evesham.
They halted below
Craycombe, in the great meadow called Mosham. There they knighted
several young men and planned the forthcoming battle. The plan was that
twelve of the strongest and most intrepid men-at-arms should be selected
to seek to kill the earl of Leicester. Their orders were to break
through the ranks and look at nobody nor let any man come between them
until they reached the person of the earl. One of these twelve was Sir
Roger de Mortimer, and he was the one who killed the earl.
We monks did not
see the fighting, but earl Simon and his knights must have ridden up the
hill intending to break through the line facing them. They failed and were
surrounded. The Welsh foot-soldiers ran away. The
king, who had been taken into the battle with Simon's men, was recognised
... ‘I am Henry of Winchester, your king! I am Henry your king!’ ... and
reunited with his son.
After Simon was
killed few of his knights escaped the vengeance of the lord Edward. The
victors took savage vengeance on the body of the earl, cutting off his
head, his hands, his feet and even his private parts. The brothers gave
honourable burial to what remained, placing it at the foot of the High
Altar with the body of his eldest son Henry. But that was later in the
day, after we had searched the hill for the dead and wounded and after we
had seen the horrors of war in our town, where the dead lay thick on the
ground, like animals.
But that was not
all. It was horrible to see and terrible to speak of, but the killing
came even into the chancel of our Church, where the Holy Cross and the
altars and the statues were sprayed with the blood of the wounded and the
dead. There were bodies round the High Altar itself and a stream of
blood ran down into the crypt. Late in the afternoon we were able to go
out to the battlefield itself.
How many were
killed, on the hill, by the river, in the town and in our Abbey, no-one
knew except God, to Whom is the power and the glory, world without end.
Amen.
Afterwards we heard
news of a long siege at the earl's castle of Kenilworth.
We were ordered by
the lord king to remove the earl's remains from their resting-place by our
High Altar and to re-bury them where none would know. This was done.
But there were a great many
wonders known to us at Evesham. Men and women and children
with manifest sickness or injury were miraculously cured in our Church or
at the Battle Well, near where the earl was killed. Stories of these
cures and healings gave great offence to the lord king and so we listed no
more miracles after a year or two”.
