The Barons’ Wars: Battle of Lewes

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While Edward’s commander left the field and rode off to the south, the prince and a handful of followers decided to fight their way to St. Pancras. Their reward when they reached the priory was to be taken prisoner as well. Edward’s reward for his final act of impious valor was that he remained a hostage for more than a year.

After spending a night in the priory with his son and his followers as captives, Henry agreed on May 15 to discuss terms with Earl Simon. Throughout the day’s negotiations, priests acted as intermediaries, coming and going between the priory and Simon’s headquarters in the town of Lewes. No copy of the treaty, the Mise of Lewes, has survived, and nobody has recorded exactly what its conditions might have been. It is certain, however, that it left Simon de Montfort with more power and prestige than he had had before — and King Henry with less.

With that agreement sealed, there remained the unpleasant task of disposing of the slain. The streets of Lewes were lined with dead and wounded, and most of the latter would also die. The abbot of St. Pancras priory put the number of dead at 2,700, most of them peasants.

The helmets and armor of the knights was more than the average peasant could afford. A second reason for class disparity in the number killed was the profit motive — a captured knight could be held ransom for a considerable sum, determined by his rank and station, whereas a peasant soldier was worth nothing but killing.

In 1846, during construction of a railway line through the site of St. Pancras priory, excavators discovered a mass of human bones in a well about 18 feet below ground level. There were enough bones to fill 13 freight cars — probably well over 1,000 skeletons. The bones were taken from the site and unloaded a short distance away, where they were used as fill for an embankment then under construction. Whether they were the remains of Henry’s or Simon’s men is unknown.

After the Battle of Lewes, England had two rulers. Henry was still king, but Earl Simon, Gilbert the Red and the Bishop of Chichester headed a committee of barons, church leaders and two representatives of each town who held control over the rights and power of the crown.

Simon’s de facto reign would be colorful but brief. After Gilbert, accusing Simon himself of behaving too much like a king, met with Prince Edward and raised an army against him, the earl would die fighting at the Battle of Evesham on August 3, 1265. For the time being, however, as Winston Churchill wrote in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, ‘Simon de Montfort was now in every respect master of England.’

This article was written by David A. Johnson and originally published in the May 2006 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!

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Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

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