CHAP. 1264 Offer of peace, army. It was conveyed by those whose holy office made them the rightful peacemakers, but whom a traditional policy and a long alliance bound to their leader. Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, was Simons oldest living friend, and Henry of Sandwich, Bishop of London, was no unworthy follower of rejected by his immediate predecessor in that see. But the offer the king. The king and others defy Earl Simon. The Battle of Lewes: the baro nial pre-1 parations; was indignantly and contemptuously rejected, and the idea of submitting to an arbitration of prelates laughed to scorn, as unworthy of those who held their titles by the sword. The king in his answer, and Richard and Edward in their letter of defiance, did not even deign to give the hostile earls their titles; they were saluted as lying traitors, and challenged to do their worst. Richard had put off his old character of mediator, for the destruction of his property had touched him in his tenderest part.' Edward was not likely to forget or forgive the insult put upon his mother by the Londoners, and burned with the desire for revenge, which he was enabled to gratify to his own hurt. The negotiation occupied Monday and Tuesday, May 12 and 13. After the royal answer nothing more was to be done, and the earl resolved on losing no time. Next day, Wednesday, May 14, the fate of the country was decided on the battlefield of Lewes. The soldiers of de Montfort were marked with a white cross on back and front, as a distinguishing sign, and in token that they called themselves, like their ancestors in 1215, the army of God. There was in them a nascent spark of the religious fervour which He is said at first to have offered to mediate on promise of a large indemnity. Polit. Songs, ed. Wright, 69. CHAP. IX. 1264 of the animated the armies of Cromwell. Simon himself passed the night in prayer and in anxious preparation for the morrow, encouraging all around him, and infusing into them some portion of his own enthusiasm. His troops were shriven by the Bishop of Worcester, while the royalist army indulged in wine behaviour and pleasure, not scrupling to carry on their orgies royalists. even on holy ground. The account of the different preparations of the two armies recalls that given of the night before another battle, fought not very far from the same place two hundred years before, and must be received with equal caution.' De Montforts plans were laid with a care and foresight, and executed with a combination of resource and decision, which would be sufficient, even if we knew nothing more of his military prowess, to support his reputation as the first general of his day. He determined to surprise his foes; as soon therefore as it was light enough to move, the march began. But, before we enter upon the details of the march and the battle itself, a brief description of the locality will be necessary. tion of the The undulating ridges of the South Downs, which Descripform the natural bulwark of the coast of Sussex, battle-field. consist, in the neighbourhood of Lewes, of two main ridges running east and west, both of which are cut by the river Ouse in its course towards the sea at Newhaven. The northern of these ends abruptly, a short way to the east of the town, in the height called Mount Caeburn; the southern runs on eastward till It must however be allowed that the account of the debauchery of the royal army on this occasion is supported by several independent witnesses, one of whom, the informant of the Melrose Chronicler, declares he saw it with his own eyes. The same story is told about the night before Bannockburn, as well as of that before Hastings. T CHAP. 1264 The battle : description of the it ends in the cliffs of Beachy Head. In the gap between the two portions of the northern ridge lies the town of Lewes. On the eastern or left bank of the of Lewes Ouse the hill rises precipitously from the bed of the stream, leaving but scant space for houses on this battle-field. side. On the other side of the river this ridge, at a point two miles north-west of the town, just above the hamlet of Offham, makes a sudden curve, and is continued in two or three minor ridges, like the fingers of an outstretched hand, of constantly decreasing elevation, which tend in a south-easterly direction, till they merge in a broad undulating shelf. On this shelf the chief portion of the town is built; a picturesque old town, consisting mainly of one long street, which runs nearly due east and west, and ends in the open down. In former days the castle, with its double keep, formed its boundary in this direction. Similarly the western portion of the southern ridge sends off one long offshoot towards the north-east, which nearly meets those from the northern ridge. At the end of this offshoot lies the suburb of Southover, at a lower elevation than the part about the castle; and at the point where it sinks southward into the marshy flat, which at no very distant period was covered by the sca, are still to be seen the ruins of the Cluniac Priory of St. Pancras. A line drawn from the castle to the priory would cross the intervening depression in a direction almost due north and south. The march upon Lewes. The direct road from Fletching to Lewes passes through Offham, and skirts round the bend in the ridge above mentioned, entering the town near the castle. Had Simon followed this route, he would have been seen from the castle at least two |
