Edward’s army had been shadowing the rebels, on the north side of the
Avon. De Montfort had arrived at Evesham at about 6:00am. News of the
royal army’s approach reached him in Evesham Abbey at around 8:30am. At
first the royal forces were supposedly mistaken, by a lookout on the tower
of Evesham Abbey, for the approach of de Montfort’s son, possibly because
Edward was carrying captured banners from the attack at Kenilworth.
According to the new
account, de Montfort dismissed the advice that they should defend the
Abbey church against the enemy and await the arrival of reinforcements.
Neither would he retreat over the bridge to delay the action. After
addressing his troops beside the conduit in the town, taking the captive
king Henry III with him, de Montfort rode out with his cavalry to engage
the enemy. The infantry, under the command of de Bohun, followed as a
rearguard because, according to other accounts, the Welsh troops were
reluctant to fight.
He presumably took the
Alcester road north out of the town, which after less than a mile the road
reaches the summit of Greenhill. Mathew Paris says the armies fought on a
‘large plain’, and Greenhill does rapidly widen out into a quite extensive
flat topped hill. The new account implies that de Montfort was already
deployed on the hilltop when Edward’s army advanced up the hill, from the
direction of Worcester. He thus had the choice of ground, but was
outnumbered by more than three to one. According to Guilsbrough and Wykes
chronicles Edward’s battle was to the fore, but rather than the extensive
separation between the forces depicted by Cox, this may simply have been
the staggered deployment of battles such as those known for 12th century
battles (Verbruggen, 1997, 209). However the new account implies the royal
forces more simply deployed, Prince Edward’s division in the centre, with
those of de Clare to his left and Mortimer to his right.
Some accounts imply de
Montfort made a bold cavalry attack, perhaps in the hope of breaking
through, attacking in a wedge formation along the Alcester road, between
the two divisions of de Clare and Prince Edward. At first some of the
royal forces are said to have retreated, but then there was a counter
attack, with the wings of the royal army swinging around, encircling de
Montfort’s army, or at least his knights. According to the English
Heritage report many of his infantry may already have been routed, but the
suggestion that the encircled forces then sustained the action for ‘some
hours’ seems highly improbable.
The new account clearly
explains Edward’s tactics. Mortimer and twelve of his knights had been
given the task of breaking through the rebel formation and striking
straight at de Montfort, to kill him and thus destroy his army’s will to
fight. According to Wykes, de Montfort brought his army together ‘in a
thick mass in the form of a circle’ as a defence but very soon he and some
twenty of his knights were killed, his body being hacked to pieces. Even
the king himself, still held prisoner on the battlefield, was nearly
killed in the melee.
After de Montfort’s death
his army broke and fled, some towards the river, many of whom were
drowned; others were pursued across the fields and into the town, even in
the abbey church itself. This execution is said to have continued until
mid afternoon. Unusually for a medieval battle, no quarter was supposedly
to be given and de Montfort, his son Henry and most of his main supporters
were cut down, though some important prisoners were taken. De Montfort’s
son Simon, was still marching south from Alcester towards Evesham when he
encountered fugitives for the battle.
