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Lewes - page 3 |
Sunday October 26, 2008 |
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On this side the main range of the Downs descends rather gently towards the river, not with a uniform slope, but in three spurs separated by slight valleys. The road from Fletching to Lewes passes over the eastemmost of these spurs by the hamlet of Offham, and by this path would have been the shortest approach from the barons' camp. But Simon had wisely resolved not to come down a road cramped between the hills and the river. Marching at early dawn on May 14, he turned off the road north of the Downs, and ascended them at a hollow slope called the Combe, four miles from Lewes.5 This he was able to do quite unmolested, as King Henry had made no proper arrangements for keeping an eye on his adversaries. He had not sent out any reconnaissance towards Fletching, and the sole precaution that he had taken was to place on the previous day a small party on a high point of the Downs to keep watch. No measures had been taken to relieve the watchers on the 13th, and, being tired and hungry, they slipped back into Lewes to rest themselves, leaving a single man on guard. This individual lay down under a gorse-bush, and was caught sound asleep by the first of De Montfort's men who climbed the slope. Thus the earl was able to put his whole force in array on the ridge of the Downs before the Royalists had the least idea that he was within two miles of them. Simon had spent the previous day and night in distributing his men into corps, and assigning the position of each on the march and in battle-line-a task which, as the chroniclers tell us, no other man in his raw army was competent to discharge.6 Now he had full leisure to see that his exact intentions were carried out, and to settle the smallest details of the marshalling. Owing to the disasters at Northampton and Nottingham, the barons' army was much smaller than might have been raised by the full levy of the party, for many of their most important leaders were prisoners in the king's hands.7 The estimate of forty thousand men given by several chroniclers as Simon's force is one of the hopeless and habitual exaggerations of the mediaeval scribe. But, small though the army was, it was divided not into the usual three battles, but into four. There is no doubt that the fourth, which was led by the earl himself was a reserve corps placed behind the others, but none of the chroniclers expressly state this fact. It can be inferred, without any danger of doubt, from the circumstance that the three first-named battles of Simon's army each engaged with one of the three bodies which formed the king's left, right, and centre, and that the earl's division came later into the fight than the other three. As arrayed on the Downs before descending to battle, the baronial army was drawn up as follows -On the right or southernmost wing were Humphrey de Bohun, the eldest son of the Earl of Hereford, John de Burgh (the grandson of the great Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh), and De Montfort's two sons, Henry and Guy. In the centre was Gilbert de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, with John Fitz-John and William de Montchensy, two of the most vigorous members of the baronial party. The third or northern wing was composed of the numerous infantry of the Londoners, and of a body of knights commanded by Nicholas de Segrave, Henry de Hastings, John Giffard, and Hervey of Borham. The earl's reserve corps lay behind the centre; the horsemen in it consisted of his own personal retainers, the foot were probably Londoners, as they were commanded by Thomas of Pevelsdon, an alderman of the city, who had always been one of Simon's most sturdy adherents. Deployed in this order, and probably with the knights of each division in front and the infantry behind, Simon's forces halted just as the bell-tower of Lewes Priory came in sight, to engage for a moment in prayer, after a short address from their leaders. Scattered over the slope of the Downs were small parties of the grooms of the Royalists, grazing their lords' horses, for forage had failed in Lewes. They caught sight of the baronial host as it came down the hill, and fled back to the town to rouse their masters. Simon's host followed close at their heels, leaving on the upper ridge of the hill such small impedimenta as they had brought with them, the chief of which was the earl's chariot,8 to which he had bound his great banner, after the manner of the Milanese at Legnano or the Yorkshire-men at our own Battle of the Standard. Inside the carriage were three (or four) citizens of London whom Simon had arrested for opposing him, and was determined to keep in safe custody. The banner and baggage were left in charge of a guard of infantry, under William le Blound, one of the signatories of the agreement for arbitration which had ended so unhappily at Amiens.9
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