From Henry VI's roll of oblations, which appears to be the
strongest source ( relevant extract in "The Battles of Lewes and Evesham
1264/65" by David Carpenter) Simon senior spent Monday 3rd August or at
any rate most of it at Kempsey. According to the Westminster Chronicle and
Guisborough, Simon senior was ignorant of the Kenilworth fiasco. We do not
know why he stayed at Kempsey for so long but my guess is that he tried to
renew his march to Kenilworth, skirting Worcester to the east to go via
Alcester but found that there was far too much royalist activity in and
around Worcester to enable him to do so. I think that by that time, the
infantry which had pretended to go towards Shrewsbury had returned to
Worcester and that there was also in Worcester Roger of Mortimer and his
marcher forces. Simon senior was forced to change his route and make a
more circuitous journey via Evesham. I think it was still his intention to
go to Kenilworth after Evesham rather than attempt arrangements, which
could well have gone wrong, for his son to meet him at Evesham.
There is virtual agreement over Simon senior's route from
Kempsey to Evesham. He went from Kempsey to Pershore, crossed the Avon
there and then continued south of the Avon to Evesham where he crossed the
bridge into the town where his army could enjoy the hospitality of the
Abbey. By contrast, there is considerable disagreement over the royalist
approach. I have usually given a talk about the various theories during my
Evesham battlefield walks and can summarise them as follows.
The first theory, that of e.g. C. Oman in his "The Art of
War in the Middle Ages", is that Edward divided his army at Worcester into
three divisions, under himself, Clare and Mortimer. Mortimer took the same
route as Simon senior, Clare took the Worcester Evesham Road which keeps
to the north of the Avon (modern A4538 turning into the renumbered A44),
north of the Avon ending up on Greenhill a mile or so north of Evesham and
Edward cut across along the modern A422 via Inkberrow to cut the Alcester
Evesham Road (now the B 4088) and then went south to Green Hill to join
Clare. Oman's principal authority for this is a strong source, the
dramatic and a detailed account of Walter of Guisborough. "...... he
(Edward) proceeded towards Evesham on the third day and having divided his
army into three divisions, he himself with his men from one side, the
Count of Gloucester from another and Roger of Mortimer came from behind.
And so Edward the son of the King came from the northern
side as it were from Kenilworth to Evesham, and so that he should not be
recognised from afar, put up first the standard of Simon junior and of the
rest of those that he had captured, so that by this deception he could
occupy the hill first and have the best position. When he saw this,
Nicholas the barber who was the Earl's lookout, a man expert in the
recognition of arms, seeing the armed men coming from afar said to the
Earl 'Here come many armed men from the north, and as far as I can see
from afar, they appear to be your standards.' And he said 'It is my son.
Do not be afraid but go and have a closer look so that we are not by
chance taken by surprise'. He did not then know what had happened to his
son. The look out therefore went up himself to the top of the bell tower
of the Abbey where they had taken hospitality and clearly recognised the
standards of the king's son from one side, the other standards having
been discarded, and the standards of the Count of Gloucester from another
side and similarly the standard of Roger of Mortimer from the west and
from behind; he shouted to the him and said ' We are all dead.........' "
Nicholas was evidently not a man to mince his words or
break bad news gently.
