Simon de Montfort sent envoys to the King with a
final plea for peace. It is uncertain what happened
next. There are two accounts: the first is
that the King sent an uncompromising reply,
refusing to bargain with traitors;
the second is that the King vacillated until Prince Edward intervened, rebuking
his father and telling the envoys that
there would be no mercy for
traitors. Edward was still smarting
over the insults offered to his mother by the
Londoners and he was determined to avenge this
insult. Nor was Edward
keen to swear an oath to the Provisions of Oxford
and had to be forced to do so by his
father. Of the two views, the intervention of the
hawkish Edward seems the more likely.
De Montfort and his army were
far from downcast, either by the odds against them or by their position as
traitors. By taking up arms against their King they had placed
themselves under the executioner's knife but they saw their cause as
noble and that God was on their side,
eve if the King was not. De Montfort troops seem
to have been fond of sewing white crosses
onto their tunics and surcoats, the mark of the
crusader.
