Before sunrise on 14 May 1264 the army of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, came down off the South Downs to attack King Henry III's forces at Lewes in Sussex. By the end of the day the king, his brother Richard and his son the Lord Edward were in the rebels' hands. For just over a year Montfort governed England in the king's name, and called a parliament that for the first time included representatives of the towns. The date is in the Julian calendar used in England at the time.
The quarrel over the Provisions
In 1258 the leading English barons forced Henry III to accept the Provisions of Oxford, a scheme of reform that put government under baronial control. The reformers soon split, and Henry, after obtaining papal absolution from his oath, set the Provisions aside. Simon de Montfort, the king's brother-in-law and the leader of the radical reformers, came back from abroad in 1263 to lead a rebellion. Britannica notes the support he drew from the lesser barons, the county knights, the men of London and the Cinque Ports, and many clergy.1
Both sides agreed to let King Louis IX of France arbitrate. In January 1264, by the Mise of Amiens, Louis annulled the Provisions entirely. Montfort rejected the award, and after attempts at direct negotiation failed, the dispute went to war. The young Lord Edward, Henry's eldest son, had by then fallen out with the Londoners, and Britannica says his violent behavior and his quarrel with them harmed the king's cause.2
A march before dawn
In the spring of 1264 the royal army lay at Lewes, around the castle and the priory below the South Downs. In the early hours of 14 May, before sunrise, Montfort's army advanced on the town. In the Oxford Companion to British History, the historian S. D. Lloyd writes that Montfort was outnumbered, but that his surprise advance let him attack at a place and time of his choosing. The battle was fought on the slope between the town walls and the ridge of the downs, starting about half a mile west of the castle.3
The memorial plaque at Lewes Castle describes the armies. The rebels, led by Montfort and Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, held the high ground, with the Londoners on their left flank. Henry and his brother Richard, earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, advanced uphill from the priory, while Edward and John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, attacked from the castle.4
Edward's charge and the king's defeat
Edward's horsemen broke the Londoners and chased them from the field. The plaque records that many were killed in the marsh. Britannica judges that his vengeful pursuit of the Londoners early in the battle contributed to Henry's defeat. While he was gone, the royal center and left were beaten. According to the plaque, Richard was captured in a windmill and Henry fled back to the priory, and when Edward returned the battle was already lost.5
Lloyd calls it a complete victory for Montfort. Henry and Edward were captured, and Edward became a hostage in Montfort's hands.6
Montfort's year
Lloyd writes that Lewes saved the cause of the Provisions of Oxford and established Montfort's protectorate. Britannica describes the regime as a military dictatorship that tried to build a legal basis of consent, among other ways by summoning representatives of both the shires and the boroughs to the parliament of 1265.7
It did not last. Montfort's hold on power drove his chief ally, the young Gilbert de Clare, over to the royalists, and in May 1265 Edward escaped at Hereford. He penned Montfort's army behind the Severn, destroyed a relieving army at Kenilworth on 1 August, and on 4 August 1265 trapped Montfort at Evesham, where Montfort was killed and Henry rescued. Edward later reigned as Edward I; more of England's battles are gathered in our list of the greatest battles in British history.8 › Battle of Evesham, 1265
Also on this day
- 1747: First Battle of Cape Finisterre. In the War of the Austrian Succession, Admiral Anson's British fleet caught a big French convoy escorted by La Jonquière off Cape Finisterre in Spain.
