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Sunday October 26, 2008

Down to the day of battle the operations which led up to the fight of Lewes show all the characteristic incoherence and inconsequence of a medieval campaign, and do no credit to either of the parties concerned, King Henry had raised a considerable army in the Midlands, while the baronial party had made itself strong in London, but had also seized and garrisoned the important towns of Northampton, Leicester, and Nottingham The king resolved to subdue the three midland centres of revolt before undertaking any further operations. Northampton fell with unexpected ease, owing to the treachery of the monks of St Andrew's Priory, who admitted the royal troops through a passage into their garden. This was a severe blow to the barons, for some of their chief leaders were made prisoners, including Simon the Younger, the second son of the great Earl Simon, his comrade Peter de Montfort, and fifteen barons and bannerets more.

A few days later (April 11th) Leicester was sacked, and Nottingham, the spirit of whose defenders was shaken by the disaster at Northampton, surrendered at the king's summons (April 13th). Having thus cleared the eastern Midlands of enemies, Henry should at once have marched on London with his victorious army. The fall of the capital would have settled the fate of the war, and, in spite of all the efforts of De Montfort, the spirits of his followers were sinking low. Simon himself had started to relieve Northampton, and had reached St. Albans when the news of disaster reached him. He immediately fell back and prepared to defend the city. Finding, however, that the king showed no signs of striking at London, and had marched northward, the earl resolved to make a rapid stroke at Rochester, the one Royalist stronghold in the neighbourhood of the capital. He stormed the bridge, penetrated into the town, and drove the garrison within the walls of the castle (April 18th). He captured its outworks, but the massive strength of its great Norman keep was too much for such siege appliances as the earl could employ. The garrison, under John de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, held their own without difficulty.

Meanwhile, the king had received news of the siege, and left the Midlands. He should undoubtedly have risked all other objects, and thrown himself upon London. The mere news of his having turned southward was enough to draw Simon and his host back from Rochester to defend the capital (April 26th). The earl merely left a few hundred men stockaded in front of the gate of the keep to hold the garrison in check-a thing easily done, because the narrowness of the exits of a Norman castle rendered sallies very difficult.

But, instead of striking at London, King Henry merely sent forward his son, Prince Edward, with a small cavalry force, to see if the city was in a state of defence,¹ and then committed the extraordinary error of coasting round it by a vast circular march. Returning down the Watling Street, he struck off it by St. Albans, passed the Thames at Kingston, hastily rushed across Surrey by way of Croydon, and arrived at Rochester on April 28th. The blockading force was easily driven off, and the few prisoners made were cruelly mutilated.

This huge flank march had no merit but its swiftness. Prince Edward and the mounted part of the royal army marched from Nottingham to Rochester-a hundred and fifty miles in five days,² and the infantry were not very far behind. The pace, however, had told heavily on the Royalists: many of the horses were ruined when the prince arrived at Rochester, and the foot-soldiery had left thousands of stragglers on the way.